The Sykes Chapel and Center for Faith and Values at the University of Tampa in Tampa, Fla., gives students the opportunity to balance their educational and intellectual development with their personal and spiritual growth relative to life values and goals. The unique structure is one of the most architecturally significant buildings at the University of Tampa, a private, secular university serving 6,500 students from 50 states and approximately 100 countries.
The 15,000-square-foot structure includes a main hall with seating for 260 people for lectures, ceremonies, discussions and musical performances including those with its 55-foot-tall custom-built organ. In addition, the facility offers meeting rooms, two meditation rooms and a gallery. Brick, high-performance glass, granite and metal panels from RHEINZINK America Inc., Woburn, Mass., comprise the primary materials of the building’s exterior palette.
Design for the project was provided by tvsdesign, Atlanta. “The chapel/center was designed to elicit spiritual, sensory and emotional responses by the building users,” says Robert Balke, principal at tvsdesign. “The building interior is shaped by light and sound. Like two cupped hands held slightly apart, light enters from above and from the east. Daylight and music are reflected and diffused by the warm, curving interior forms of the undulating wooden walls. The project demonstrates the highest attention to design and the discerning use of quality materials in order to give form to the university’s vision.”
Tvsdesign chose metal to relate to the existing campus. The historic flagship building, Plant Hall, is well known for its stainless-steel turrets and onion domes. Balke says he wanted a long-wearing, high-quality architectural roof and metal, specifically zinc, fit the bill.
Three different RHEINZINK products were utilized. Approximately 17,500 square feet of 22-gauge, 0.8-mm RHEINZINK Double Lock Standing Seam Panels clad the roof, while approximately 6,500 square feet of RHEINZINK 18-gauge, 1.2-mm Vertical Reveal Panels clad the façade and soffits. Additionally, 3,000 square feet of zinc composite material (ZCM) were used on the fascia and canopies. All RHEINZINK was finished in Pre-weathered Blue Gray.
“We chose zinc because of its soft appearance, its graceful ageing and development of a pleasing patina and self healing qualities,” Balke says. “The color and value (darkness/lightness) also related well to the existing stainless steel on campus. The zinc metal met the architect’s, university’s and prime donor’s goal for high quality and 100-year-plus durability, as well as a pleasing aesthetic. The zinc metal color works well with the other exterior materials such as the campus standard red brick, Chinese granite paving, limestone-colored concrete lintels and lightly tinted glass. We matched the zinc color for other architectural metals such as building mullions. The seams of the metal roof also helped to express the building’s form and lend a human scale to the architecture.”
Early in the design process, stainless steel was considered for the roof as a reference to the stainless-steel minarets gracing the historic Plant Hall that symbolizes the university. But RHEINZINK was selected because of its visual softness and ability to diffuse light as required by the design.
The durability and sustainability of RHEINZINK was also an important factor. “We see this as an enduring, 100-year building,” Balke says. “The self-healing nature of zinc and the fact that it will patina over time was important to us. The building will look even better as it ages.”
Sykes Chapel and Center for Faith and Value, Tampa, Fla.
Completed: December 2010
Total square footage: 15,000 square feet
Architect: tvsdesign, Atlanta, www.tvs-design.com
General contractor: Peter R. Brown Construction Inc., Tampa
Fabricator: MetalTech-USA, Peachtree City, Ga.
Installers: General Works of Tampa, Tampa, and Morrell Architectural Systems Inc., Tampa
Metal roof and wall panels: RHEINZINK America Inc., Woburn, Mass., www.rheinzink.com