The beauty of the desert Southwest comes from a feeling of the earth scrubbed raw. The Red Rock Canyon Conservation Area northwest of Las Vegas receives more than 1 million visitors annually who want to experience that environment and beauty. Until recently, a visitor’s initial entry to the area was through a contact station that stood out from the environment like an invading species. But Henry Tom and his team at Line and Space LLC, a Tucson, Ariz.-based architecture firm, changed that by designing a new contact station and wrapping it with perforated steel panels from Tampa, Fla.-based McNICHOLS Co.
“All these mountains have a high level of metal oxide so they have a red patina to them,” says Tom. “What we wanted to do was to let the building take on that natural patina-to get that deep red color … In addition, we wanted a building that had durable materials. We’re not going to redo this thing again for a very long time.”
The contact station was part of a larger project that included a new visitor center in the same area. The original contact station was built piecemeal by staff and Bureau of Land Management personnel. The rough environment had begun to take its toll and it was falling apart in many places. Line and Space designed the building to work efficiently, and reused the satellite booths to reduce costs. Selecting metal as a major building component was a signature element of that. All the materials could be acquired locally, reducing transportation costs and ensuring more control over the process.
The 12-gauge perforated metal panels were attached to the masonry building on a framework and were also wrapped around the satellite booths, which are manned to collect entry fees from visitors. The perforated metal panels feature staggered 1/4-inch holes on 3/8-inch centers, with a 40 percent open area. Because the contact station employees collect money, security is an issue and the openness of the perforations allow people inside the building to maintain visual contact with those workers in the satellite booths.
Crews sandblasted the perforated metal panels after installation. “We sandblasted the metal to get a very uniform finish,” Tom explains. Design Judge Andrew Cottrell notes, “Nothing is more raw and natural than naked steel left to oxidize to the red and orange color of the desert Southwest.”
In this environment, shading the building is an essential part of the design process. The building orientation, which was forced by the existing roadway, made providing effective shade more difficult than usual. Again, the perforated metal helped keep the building and the satellite booth cooler, offering much needed shade to the occupants. Steel canopies, radiating out from the building, provided additional shading from midday sun, while the panels protected during the latter part of the day.
To protect the windows against thermal gain, the team designed metal, vertical louvers that penetrated the perforated screen. Again, the natural metal was allowed to oxidize to meet the beauty of the surrounding desert.
Contact Station, Red Rock Canyon Conservation Area near Las Vegas
Completed: January 2010
Total square feet: 1,320 square feet
Building owner: U.S. Department of the Interior, Bureau of Land Management
Architect: Line and Space LLC, Tucson, Ariz., www.lineandspace.com
General co ntractor: Straub Construction, Fallbrook, Calif.
Installer: J&W Construction, Paramount, Calif.
Perforated metal panels: McNICHOLS Co., Tampa, Fla., www.mcnichols.com