CCA SF
From Archiplanet
 | California College of Arts San Francisco Campus |
| Designer | Skidmore Owings & Merrill LLP (SOM) |
| Location | San Francisco, California, USA |
| Date | 1951 |
| Building Type | industrial maintenance facility converted to art school, art college |
| Construction System | long-span concrete with steel bracing for seismic upgrade |
| Climate | mild temperate |
| Context | urban, light industrial |
| Architectural Style | Environmental Modern |
| Street Address | 450 Irwin Street |
| Notes | An industrial mantenance facility elegantly converted to arts college. Renovation and conversion by Leddy Maytum Stacy (LMS) Architects, 1997 to 1998 |
| At Great Buildings | http://www.greatbuildings.com/buildings/CCA_SF.html |
Contents |
[edit] Images
[edit] Discussion
| Building Details | |
| Client | California College of Arts |
| Stories | 1 |
California College of Arts San Francisco Campus Commentary
The California College of Arts and Crafts/Montgomery Campus renovated a mid-century Greyhound Bus Lines repair shed into what is now the cornerstone of its campus near the thriving South of Market district in San Francisco. The building, originally designed by the architecture firm <a href="/architects/Skidmore_Owings_and_Merrill-SOM.html">Skidmore, Owings and Merrill</a>, is teeming with glass and steel, commanding a striking presence. San Francisco firm Leddy Maytum Stacy was charged with transforming the building into a multi-use space for the college, and succeeded in not only preserving the architectural integrity of the original structure, but also creating a space that performs far more efficiently than its original designers would have imagined. The new building is as flexible and intimate as it is striking, among the most handsome sustainable buildings to emerge in this era.
— Brian Libby, ArchitectureWeek
"It's an eloquent testament to the importance of reusing materials. The architect and owner were able to recognize what's special and good about this building and create a final result that is more wonderful than what they started with."
"The design team was faced with a tough problem. To condition it using standard practice would have cost more than any school could afford. Its creative use of an energy efficient radiant heating system is an appropriate solution, and the building takes advantage of its environment through the use of natural ventilation. Enhancing natural light while installing baffles to improve the quality of light without destroying the old facade is a very noble effort."
"The project is simply captivating and demonstrates a lot of restraint. The design team created a building inside a building for the classrooms where there was need for them, isolating the spaces that needed finer conditioning. The first conceptual decisions are really what made this building."
— 2000 Savings by Design Awards Jury
Creator's Words
"A lot of the historic meaning and the actual fabric of the building were saved through a few simple moves, which were also the most cost-effective ones. Everything was cross-checked several times, and it added up to something that was greater than the sum of its parts. Yes, the view of downtown was saved, but not at the sacrifice of blocking the wall of programs. Yes, the glass wall was saved, but it was saved by something sustainable that also saved some money in the long run. And yes, it's as flexible as it could ever be.
"It's an art and architecture school, so the client realized the aesthetic beauty of the place. They wanted to leave it as much intact as they could, even though it was a historically listed structure. So really the big questions became, "Is it seismically safe?" "How the heck are we going to heat this with so much glass?" and "How can we use it to create community for the students?"
"The program is interdisciplinary, so they wanted it to be very flexible and evolve, because they rewrite their course schedule every semester. It just became a building within the building. Then we had to create a seismic upgrade to complement the building, rather than get in the way. And then to heat it, California Title 24 tells you that you have to upgrade the skin of your building to make it efficient to a certain level. With the glass, there was no way to heat that. We would have had to replace the entire skin, and everyone was in an uproar about that. But we realized that if we provided solar heating, it would make us exempt from Title 24, according to California regulations. So basically the cost of the solar system was the cost of replacing the glazing. We were able to weigh that and say, 'Let's go for the solar.'
"We're lucky to the glass is mostly north facing. Most of the glare, if any, comes through the skylights. We handle that through sun shading on the skylights. During the summer they do get some glare through the entry court, but that is screened mostly by program elements. There's a cafe there and an art gallery, and they screen most of the western light. They have painters along the glass who love the light. They have mostly graphic designers or architects in the open studios, and they like the light. There are the shop-program functions in the enclosed spaces of the studios, and those spaces tend to not want light, but they're enclosed, so it doesn't matter for them either. So it's just a matter of what program should go where."
— Tom Monahan of LMS Architects, interviewed by Brian Libby for ArchitectureWeek, 2003
Details
- Savings by Design Award, 2000</a>
- Architecture + Energy Award, Portland, Oregon AIA, 2001
Design Team
- Renovation and Conversion Architect: LMS Architects
- Original Architect: Skidmore Owings and Merrill
- Structural Engineer: Ove Arup
- Mechanical Engineer: Ove Arup
[edit] Sustainabilty
A high-sustainability building, based on extensive daylighting, maintaining 65 degrees fahrenheit day and night using solar heating and other sustainable systems, while encapsulating existing toxics in concrete slab. Not LEED rated.
Overall Energy Efficiency Extensive daylighting. All heating provided by rooftop solar system. All cooling provided by natural ventilation.
[edit] Envelope
Retention of extensive original steel sash glazing retained daylighting and views, maintained historical character, and reduced cost. Thermal deficiencies offset by use of solar heating, etc. Existing 30' high industrial sash windows maintained to preserve dramatic views of downtown San Francisco and the Potrero Hill area.
Primary Structure
- Long-span concrete roof structure with steel bracing as a seismic upgrade, concrete floor slab.
- The primary exterior wall surface is the original industrial steel sash.
- Conventional built-up roof punctuated by large skylights, rows of clerestories, and partially covered with solar collectors.
[edit] Interior
Classrooms are built as buildings with the building, allowing for selective conditioning. Concrete topping slab encapsulates toxics in original slab beneath from prior use as a bus maintenance facility while providing thermal mass.
This project renovates the cavernous maintenance garage, a 150 ft. wide by 400 ft. long clear-span space characterized by its muscular structural expression, monumental volume and abundant natural light. Thirty-foot high glass curtain walls on three sides of the space and large skylights overhead accentuate the rhythm of huge, tapered concrete roof beams. The interior of the space enjoys dramatic views of downtown San Francisco and nearby residential areas.
"To help articulate a dialogue between the past and present uses of the structure, relics of the former garage are retained and incorporated in the new spaces. These include explosion-proof light fixtures, a small crane in the student cafe, clocks and various signs. The monumental concrete structure is left unpainted in contrast to the new elements of construction, preserving a patina of use." — Tom Monahan of LMS Architects
[edit] Lighting
Top, side, and clerestory daylighting provides the desired high illumination levels while reducing electrical load and heat gain from fixtures. Daylighting provided by perimeter wall glazing, skylights, and celrestories. Electric lighting with linear industrial-style florescent uplights. Interior Lighting Discussion
"An example of how how to efficiently light a 60,000sf cavernous floorplate and meet the client requirement of 65 footcandles!" ... "The Safeway scheme tweeked."
Lighting fixtures were chosen carefully for energy efficiency. Daylighting controls (i.e., lighting controls that turn off artificial lights when natural daylight reaches a certain illumination level) would have been desirable, but were beyond the project budget.
Greenhouse shading cloth is robustly installed over the large horizontal skylights to prevent over-lighting and consequent excess heat gain.
[edit] HVAC
All heating provided by rooftop solar system. All cooling provided by natural ventilation.
The building is heated entirely by the sun, with a small boiler backup system, and is cooled by natural ventilation and leaky industrial sash windows.
Heat distribution is with an in-slab radiant system. The slow swing of the radiant system works well with the Bay Area climate, which has few spikes. The design team looked at how to heat and cool in an efficient way with so much glass. They considered adding at second skin of glass, but wanted to preserve the character of the existing industrial sash and the nice light experienced in the large open area, and decided to keep it simple.
For heating, they considered passive solar, or a radiant slab system. The need for thermal storage, increased by the often around-the-clock use of the studio areas, pushed the solution toward an active solar system, with additional thermal storage^, with a small boiler added for heating backup.
The art gallery, with stricter temperature and humidity requirements, is conditioned by a packaged system with humidity control. The enclosed classrooms have PVAV systems.
Anecdotal post-occupancy feedback on building comfort is reported as positive.
HVAC Equipment
- Rooftop solar collector heating system, with radiant slab distribution. Cooling by natural ventilation through operable windows.
HVAC Performance
- HVAC performance was not simulated in detail as a part of the building design process. Anecdotally, the system is performing better than engineering expectations.
[edit] Site
Existing building makes effective use of urban site. Light industrial neighborhood. The interior of the space enjoys dramatic views of downtown San Francisco and nearby residential areas.
[edit] Community
Adaptive reuse preserves neighborhood character. Low-rise massing preserves viewshed. A good neighbor, bringing a positive concentration of general and cultural activity while retaining a landmark industrial building.
The surrounding neighborhood of the California College of Arts San Francisco Campus building is a low density, run-down fading industrial district. In this context, with little or no adjacent housing, and with few if any immediate residents, the daily and extended occupancy provided by the arts college brings a significant breath of life. It helps support local shops and eateries that add amenity to the district.
With no change in building footprint or skyline, there was little net community impact beyond the substantially increased occupancy. And through the adaptive reuse of the industrial bus maintenance facilty, its historic and functionally elegant presence continues to provide direct visual continuity with the working past.
[edit] Maps
[edit] References
[edit] External Links
- Get Right With the Sun - WorldChanging (blog) 2007.0406
