Campus in a Box
by Jonathan McGaha | January 1, 2013 12:00 am
In the center of the Phoenix metro area and in the middle of what city leaders call the “Discovery Triangle” sits Gateway Community College. The college had avoided the building binge affecting so many other institutes of higher learning. But, after saving pennies for years, it was time for the campus to add a new building and the site chosen was the very center of campus. And the building would house a combination of classrooms, labs, faculty offices, student services, libraries and a multipurpose space that would include a stage area. In short, the building would be everything that an entire campus was and became known as the Integrated Education Building.
“We called it a campus in a box,” says Mark Kranz, AIA, LEED AP. Kranz is design director for SmithGroupJJR, the Phoenix-based architecture firm responsible for the building. “If you take all the components of a campus and all the components of the existing campus,” says Kranz, “This building represents 85 to 90 percent of those functions.”
The building sits at a crossroads in the campus where everyone must pass to access parking lots and the new light rail station. The new building, the first built in 20 years, would serve as the very heart of the campus, and act not only as a service to campus functions but a defining element of what Gateway Community College was. “The whole goal was to completely transform the image of the campus from the inside out,” says Kranz.
Draw them in
The location and shape of the site forced some of the decisions. It runs east to west, creating pedestrian malls on the north and south sides that connect the existing campus center to the perimeter.
Students approach the building from all angles, and because much of the classroom area is on the second floor, designers created wide, long stairways that usher students upward and toward the building. They become funnels, managing the flow of traffic.
That is just one part of the student experience. The eastern end of the building features what Kranz calls a “scoop.” Multilevel terraces with balconies (23,000 square feet of space) and coverings provide outdoor environments that are appropriate for all seasons of the year. “The scoop is a big shading element,” Kranz says. “With the terraces we wanted to create different types of student environments outside. Some shaded; some not. Some for winter; some for spring. Some to be occupied it the middle morning and others in the afternoon.”
Hot and cold
What made all the shading possible and protected the long south-facing elevation from the harsh sun is a series of custom-made panels of perforated copper in different profiles. The panels allow light to filter through but provide shade for outdoor areas. They panels also become the most defining element of the building.
“We’ve been working with the trade community,” says Kranz, “and in this case with Kovach Building Enclosure [Chandler, Ariz.]. We went to them with the performance criteria and said: ‘This is the strategy. We want this level of shading, we have this much money, and here are the design criteria.'” Working together, Kranz explains they created a “fairly articulated broken panel that is double layered. We messed around with perforation and solidness, and how to be able to span the structure. We started with the coil. How do we maximize performance of the panel, minimize waste and span the structure?”
The result is a building that has a series of planes that use perforated copper in different panel profiles. In a large vertical stretch protecting a stairway, fabricators installed custom-made perforated galvanized steel panels. The same kind of steel was used near the scoop along a terrace to intersect the copper panels and break the barrier of the building.
The bowl
At the end of the building toward the light rail station is the large bowl area, which is wrapped with custom-colored aluminum composite panels, also manufactured and installed by Kovach. “It was designed to blend with the rest of the building and the copper language,” Kranz says, “but it has a curvilinear, voluptuousness.” The metallic finish brightens the bowl, contrasting it with the matte finish look of the perforated copper.
The bowl is a community destination. Inside is a two-story space that is designed for multiple purposes, making it apparently a campus in a box in a campus in a box. The space serves as a performance venue and community room. It is a central gathering place for campus. Designers expanded the area visually, by encompassing it with glass on the second level, creating more unique spaces outside the venue. The glass walls open so students can interact with the central space.
The lobby
All roads at Gateway lead to this building so it has many entrance points, but the building also needed a formal entry area. The three-story curtain wall defines a central lobby that, in turn, defines the building. “Even though there are probably 15 front doors,” Kranz says, “the building also needs a front entrance.” The lobby is a “vertical sliver of space that houses a café and also starts to explain the building.” On the interior, a balance of materials and signage explain the building. Each major component of the building-classroom, library, public space-gets its own treatment.
Gateway Community College got a new building, a new campus and an exciting space to attract students and engage the community
Source URL: https://www.metalarchitecture.com/articles/campus-in-a-box/