Project Details
- Project Name
- Visual Arts Building, University of Iowa
- Location
-
141 North Riverside Drive
IA
- Architect
- BNIM
- Client/Owner
- University of Iowa
- Project Types
- Education
- Project Scope
- New Construction
- Size
- 126,000 sq. feet
- Awards
- 2017 AIA New York Design Award
- Shared by
- hanley wood, llc
- Team
-
Steven Holl, Design architect
Chris McVoy, Design architect, partner-in-charge
Rychiee Espinosa, project architect
Garrick Ambrose, Project team
Bell Ying Yi Cai, Project team
Christiane Deptolla, Project team
JongSeo Lee, Project team
Johanna Muszbek, Project team
Garrett Ricciardi, Project team
Christopher Rotman, Project team
Filipe Taboada, Project team
Jeanne Wellinger, Project team
Human Tieliu Wu, Project team
Christina Yessios, Project team
Yiqing Zhao, Project team
- Consultants
-
Structural Engineer: Buro Happold,Structural Engineer: Structural Engineering Associates,Lighting Designer: L'Observatoire International,Other: Transsolar,null: Design Engineers,WJ Higgins & Co.,Civil Engineer: Shive-Hattery,Other: The Sextant Group
- Project Status
- Built
Project Description
FROM STEVEN HOLL ARCHITECTS:
The new Visual Arts facility for the University of Iowa's School of Art and Art History provides 126,000 sf of loft-like space for the departments of ceramics, sculpture, metals, photography, print making and 3D multimedia. It will also include graduate student studios, faculty and staff studios and offices, and gallery space.
The building replaces an original arts building from 1936, which was heavily damaged during a flood of the University of Iowa campus in June 2008. The new building will be located directly adjacent to and northwest of Art Building West, which Steven Holl Architects completed in 2006.
While the 2006 Arts Building West is horizontally porous and of planar composition, the new building will be vertically porous and volumetrically composed. The aim of maximum interaction between all departments of the school takes shape in social circulation spaces.
1. Interconnection: Horizontal Programs, Vertical Porosity
In a school of the arts today, interconnection and crossover are of fundamental importance. Today digital techniques open up increased interconnection between all the arts. Interconnection between all of the departments is facilitated in the vertical carving out of large open floor plates. Students can see activities ongoing across these openings and be encourages to interact and meet. Further interconnection is facilitated by glass partitions along the studio walls adjacent to internal circulation.
2. Multiple Centers of Light
Natural light and natural ventilation are inserted into the deep floor plates via the "multiple centers of light." Seven vertical cutouts encourage interaction between all four levels. These spaces of glass are characterized by a language of shifted layers where one floor plate slides past another. This geometry created multiple balconies, providing outdoor meeting spaces and informal exterior working space.
3. Stairs as Vertical Social Condensers:
Corridors as Horizontal Meeting Spaces
Stairs are shaped to encourage meeting, interaction and discussion. Some stairs stop at generous landings with tables and chairs, others open onto lounge spaces with sofas.
4. Campus Space Definition/Porosity
The original grid of the campus breaks up at the river, becoming organic as it hits the limestone bluff. The Arts West building reflects this irregular geometry in fuzzy edges. The new building picks up the campus grid again in its simple plan, defining the new campus space of the "arts meadow."
5. Material Resonance, Ecological Innovation
Natural ventilation is achieved via operable windows. A punched concrete frame structure provides thermal mass at the exterior while "bubble" slabs provide radiant cooling and heating. A Rheinzink skin in weathering blue-green is perforated for sun shade on the southwest and southeast.
FROM BNIM:
The University of Iowa Visual Arts Building opens on October 7; a signature facility for the campus and a collaboration of Steven Holl Architects (Architect) and BNIM Architects (Associate Architect / Architect of Record). The 126,000 square-foot facility is the new home for the School of Art & Art History functions that were previously housed in the 1936 Art Building. The facility will provide studio space for ceramics, sculpture, metals, photography, printmaking, 3D design, intermedia, animation and graphic design, as well as graduate student studios, faculty and staff studios and offices, and gallery space.
The new building is directly adjacent to and northwest of Art Building West, the only place in the country where two Steven Holl Architects' buildings of different vintages are side by side. BNIM worked together with the users during the design process to coordinate the physical layout and technical aspects of the making of art, directed communications with the University Design and Construction Department, oversaw the technical resolution and execution of the design concept, and worked closely with the contractors during the construction of the facility.
"This project has been an exemplar of collaboration in realizing a functional and exhilarating facility for the School of Art & Art History," Rod Kruse, BNIM Principal-in-charge said. "This new facility is intended to lift the School to new levels of enrollment and success and will be a destination for students and professionals of art and architecture."
A punched concrete frame structure composed of cast-in-place concrete provides thermal mass at the exterior while "bubble" slabs incorporating the Cobiax bubble deck system provide radiant cooling and heating. Computer modeling software was utilized to design the irregular shape of the structure and to coordinate the installation of the complex exposed mechanical pipes and ductwork. Key design features include significant daylighting, natural ventilation at the atrium skylight, a Rheinzink skin in weathering blue-green with a perforated stainless steel scrim for sun shade covers at the southwest and southeast building facades, thermal mass storage, an innovative thermal active slab heating and cooling system, and highly efficient HVAC systems utilizing energy recovery wheels to recapture potentially lost thermal energy through the extensive exhaust system.
Connection and communication between the departments is facilitated in the vertical carving out of large open floor plates. Natural light and natural ventilation are inserted into the deep floor plates by the inclusion of what the design team calls "multiple centers of light." Several vertical cutouts are designed to foster interaction between the facility's four levels. The atrium provides a central skylight and circulation space that results in a powerful core of the building.
Sculptural open stairs are shaped to encourage meeting, interaction and discussion. Some stairs stop at generous landings with tables and chairs, others open onto lounge spaces with built in seating.
BNIM and Steven Holl Architects have collaborated for more than 15 years on six facilities, and their seamless working relationship results in elegant, distinctive, and technically superior facilities, acknowledged BNIM's Jon Sloan.
"This was a true partnership between architecture firms with a strong, trusting relationship that has been built over many years," Sloan said. "Throughout the project, we felt like and operated as one office. That depth of collaboration extended from the two architecture firms to the owner, the contractor, and the engineering consultants."
The opening of the Visual Arts Building will be celebrated with a presentation by Steven Holl and Senior Partner Chris McVoy. A ribbon-cutting ceremony, followed by an open house, will officially dedicate the new facility.