Lift-Slab Achieves Fine Tuning

Bartlett Cocke Hits High Notes at Trinity University

by Jennifer Hiller

An aerial view shows the Trinity Univesity campus in San Antonio, where the Ruth Taylor Art & Music Center is undergoing an extreme makorver. (Photo by Aero Photo courtesy of Bartlett Cocke.)

A massive facelift by San Antonio-based Bartlett Cocke will add much-needed ceiling height - not to mention a new music and arts center - to Trinity University when it completes this month.

The $16 million renovation and addition project at the campus in San Antonio used the lift-slab method of construction to raise ceiling heights and bring an additional 20,000 sq. ft. of space to the Ruth Taylor Art & Music Center, which will house the art, art history and music departments and includes classrooms, studios and sound-proof faculty offices and recital rooms.

Portions of four existing 1950s structures were gutted or partially demolished to make way for a unified single building.

"It's a rebuilding and an extreme makeover of buildings on the same footprint," said John Greene, director of the physical plant at Trinity. "We added some square footage. We vacated the existing building. A portion of it was a one-story section we totally demolished. All of the exterior walls and interior walls were demolished when we raised the ceilings."

Although the lift-slab method hasn't been used widely since the 1980s, the construction technique was common in the 1950s and 1960s when most of the structures at Trinity were built. "Many of the early buildings on the Trinity campus used the lift-slab method of construction," Greene said. "It's not common."

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To avoid a complete demolition of the existing buildings and to save money, San Antonio-based Kell Muñoz Architects Inc. decided to stick with the original lift-slab method, said project manager Geof Edwards. "We moved the floors of the original building with a crane," he said. The new concrete structures tie into existing lift-slab concrete floors, which were relocated to make each of the floors level throughout the building.

"It was originally a series of building built independently," Edwards said. "They needed more space. The buildings were on different levels because of a slope, and handicapped access was an issue."

Greene said the renovation raised ceiling heights in the arts center from about 10 ft. to 15 ft. The original buildings didn't have air conditioning. "We were trying to put up a cheap building in the 1950s and 1960s," he said.

Roger Hoffmann, assistant project manager with Bartlett Cocke, said the building broke ground in October 2004, although some demolition work had been done prior to that. In addition to the floor slabs, two of the original stair towers also were preserved. "I've never seen a new project use lift-slab," he said.

An aerial vew shows the 117-acre campus and the university’s Northrup Hall (left), completed by Bartlett Cocke in 2004. (Photo by Aero Photo courtesy of Bartlett Cocke.)

Hoffman said the biggest difficulty on site wasn't the novelty of the lift-slab work, but the tight spaces on campus. "There was hardly a place to pull an 18-wheeler around to drop masonry," he added. "It had to be brought in on dump trucks instead. We utilized the tower crane extensively because of the trees we were trying to avoid and the limited space to maneuver on campus."

Architects tried to keep the original 1950s look and feel of the campus, even while renovating and adding new structures.

"We used the Trinity brick to continue the theme of the campus," Edwards said. "But we did introduce some aluminum composite panels near the courtyard."

The scale of the new three-story structure serves as a transition between >> the original low-slung campus buildings and the much larger, recently completed main administration building, he said. In 2004, Bartlett-Cocke completed the $23 million Northrup Hall, an administration and academic building that is the centerpiece of the 117-acre campus.

The Taylor Center features a dramatic sky-lit three-story lobby with balconies at the upper levels and vertical glass slots at the north and south facades. A single-concrete column, which supports a canopy over the main entrance, references similar columns on the adjacent administration and student services buildings. Deep sunshades protect the extensive glazing on the south façade.

Edwards said the lobby knits together and organizes the three wings of the building - the art and music wings and the pathway to the concert hall.

On the north wing of the building, a series of saw-tooth clerestory windows flood the third floor painting and drawing studios with natural light. A glass wall separates the studios from an east-facing balcony that is shaded by a series of large existing oak trees.

The west wing houses the music department and includes isolated floors and special wall construction to prevent noise from traveling. "Students will be able to play in their professors' offices without anyone else being disturbed," Hoffmann said.

The new center also solves a space issue for Trinity. Students and faculty in the art department previously used an outdoor courtyard that was near the entrance to the performing arts hall, causing pedestrian traffic issues. But now the arts department has been moved and the first-floor art studios open onto a work patio.

Edwards said an existing concert hall also was renovated with an expanded back-of-house area that includes dressing rooms, additional instrument storage and a freight elevator. Stage expansion nearly doubled the size of the performance area and new lighting and sound equipment brought the facility's technologies up-to-date.

Jeni Cobb, project manager with Perkins & Will, said the South Building will be ready for students and faculty by the fall semester.

Architects worked to disguise the size of the buildings in comparison with others on the campus so that the new complex would not overwhelm the site. "We tried to complement the adjacent buildings and keep the scale of this one down," Cobb said. "We wanted to keep with the campus vernacular."

The site slopes 18 to 20 ft. down to Harvey Lake. "It was a big design issue as far as landscaping and saving the trees," Cobb said. "It has a beautiful view to the lake that we worked with."

But the slope and pond also presented one of the biggest construction challenges at the site, hemming in construction equipment and necessitating a large amount of dirt work, Massey said. "When we started we had a 22-foot cut," he said. "We had to contend with the pond. All of the water around that site funnels to the lake. When we did the dirt work we had monsoons."

The topography gave architects a way to hide the central plant - by burying it on the slope. The single-story, 6,827-sq.-ft. plant includes belled piers and a slab-on-grade. Roof framing is structural steel and metal deck. Below-grade walls are concrete, while the two buildings sides above grade are faced with brick veneer and CMU backup. The plant will >> provide chilled water for the complex and backup the campus utilities system.

On the four-story South Building, the foundation system includes straight-shaft drilled piers and a first-floor slab-on grade, while the concrete building frame includes concrete columns and pan slabs at levels two, three and four and the roof level. At level one, three sides of the wall are cast-in-place concrete as are the stairs.

The building veneer is a combination of face brick and cast stone with CMU backup along with a curtain wall and storefront systems.