Supply and Demand in School Construction
Nov 1, 2011 12:00 PM, By Roger Goldstein, FAIA, LEED, and Michael Feely, LEED
Education institutions can embrace expansion opportunities by transforming industrial buildings into academic spaces.
A vacant, mostly windowless industrial research building (see inset), was transformed into the University of Connecticut Health Center’s Cell and Genome Sciences Building (above). Completion photo ©Anton Grassl/Esto
Higher-education institutions seem to be in perpetual need of expansion or change. Such dynamics often are governed by physical space requirements: for example, to accommodate fast-growing academic programs, to incorporate specialized equipment or research, or to execute phased renovation plans. In these circumstances, the appropriate spaces rarely are available at the precise time that their need becomes most acute. Thus, many institutions are exploring nontraditional options.
One way to meet on-campus demands is to look off campus. Communities are peppered with abandoned industrial buildings: warehouses, big-box stores, manufacturing facilities. Typically lacking any architectural merit, these non-descript buildings exist as a testament to the evolution of our economies. In suburbs and "edge cities," they populate industrial parks, commercial strip developments, and frequently the areas near major university campuses.
Although abandoned industrial buildings may seem less than ideal, institutions can benefit from transforming these unconventional facilities into ones that suit academic needs. As a cost-effective, sustainable and efficient alternative to new construction—which typically is more expensive and more time-consuming—renovations of existing buildings can produce needed facilities with shorter time-to-occupancy schedules and often lower construction costs.
Embracing the Benefits
Whether they have been deserted because of failed business ventures, competition, mergers or consolidations, former industrial buildings have inherent characteristics that nearby academic institutions can turn into an advantage. These facilities provide wide-open enclosed space, often with generous ceiling heights, and only one or two stories in height; they also usually include one or more loading bays, ample parking (more so in the suburbs), convenient roadway access and available utility service. For campuses lacking space and budgets for new construction, these former industrial properties can be attractive targets for reuse, renovation and revitalization.
Renovations also are sustainable and resource-efficient. Minimizing environmental costs and the impact of new construction can be a worthwhile goal. New buildings demand extraordinary amounts of energy and raw materials, and produce excessive waste. By reusing existing buildings and construction materials, renovation projects are inherently sustainable.
Compared with new construction, renovations can offer lower cost-per-square-foot costs. And because the building already exists, the municipal permitting process often is faster than for a new structure.
Revitalizing buildings and their sites also benefits the community. By removing the blight of an unoccupied building, renovation projects can re-energize neighborhoods and illustrate the value of re-investment. If a building was unattractive, its renewal gives a revitalizing facelift to the surrounding area. If the facility was not previously affiliated with an education institution, its reinvention can be tailored to express the institution’s own image. Replacing or adding windows, re-cladding exteriors, or adding new facade details can express a university’s identity and demonstrate its new directions.
Strategic Development
Every facility is unique. By capitalizing on the particular characteristics of an existing building, an institution can generate a unique environment that supports its desired academic or research mission. High volumes and open floor plans, for example, allow considerable latitude and maximum flexibility for interior layouts. A particular advantage of one-story buildings is that they can be transformed dramatically with the introduction of skylights or selectively raised roofs to bring daylight into the building.
At suburban sites, particularly industrial or office parks, extensive adjacent parking can be an added benefit, but may in some cases actually exceed the university’s needs. In these situations, ample opportunity exists to enhance the site by converting pavement into planted areas. This solution can improve stormwater management and improve the surrounding wildlife habitat—not to mention create a more attractive site.
By revitalizing an abandoned building, an institution can demonstrate its commitment to sustainable practices and to the neighborhood. The Savannah College of Art & Design in Savannah, Ga., has embraced this methodology to create a "distributed campus." It has acquired and converted buildings throughout the city over the course of several decades. Many of those buildings featured notable architectural character, but quite a few were unremarkable industrial structures that have now been given new lives.
Overcoming Challenges
Reusing an existing building brings with it a range of challenges. Some are associated with a building’s age and origination; others are unique to the particular structure.
Regardless of a facility’s age, it is likely to have structural dimensions (both floor-to-floor and column spacing) that are less than optimal for the intended academic program. For example, wet-bench research laboratories require a column spacing of between 10 and 12 feet (or multiples thereof), but an existing structural grid may not allow for such orientations.
One strategy for working around a tight floor-to-floor dimension (such as for laboratories in a multi-story building) would be to add more vertical utility shafts. This solution minimizes the lengths of duct run-outs on any given floor. Alternatively, instead of introducing a suspended ceiling, utilities and structures could be left exposed. This latter solution requires less building material (itself a sustainable choice), reduces the extent of MEP coordination, and allows for taller room heights.
With industrial buildings from the mid-1900s, asbestos and other hazardous materials often are a concern, and abatement or mitigation is required as a precursor to renovations. This is by now a well-known fact among property owners, and will figure into all cost and schedule modeling for such building projects.
Typically, the cost of renovating former industrial buildings to meet building codes and institutional standards will be more cost-effective than comparable new construction. However, that is not always the case, and institutions must perform a thorough analysis of project costs prior to committing resources to a renovation. Depending upon the condition of a building and the particular uses that an institution wishes to insert, renovations may be more expensive.
The benefits and assets of existing-building renovations should be considered; such buildings can provide ample floor area at modest cost, often with ceilings higher than what might be affordable with new construction. Indeed, the "generic" characteristics that distinguish such buildings can provide terrific opportunities for redesign and transformation to suit a variety of academic uses, from offices to research space, indoor recreation to arts facilities. And when the institution needs "swing space" to facilitate renovation phasing on campus, or simply desires to move "back office" space off-campus in order to preserve on-campus space for essential functions, the reuse of a former industrial building can present a compelling solution.
Acceptable Use Policy blog comments powered by Disqus
