From Lindsey Coulter
The new 151 million US dollar City College in San Francisco (CCSF) steam building provides its academic purpose almost immediately. From the outside, pupils and visitors not only see the interaction of sunlight in the structured facade of the building, but can also see directly in the facility itself – where the lessons of science, technology, engineering, art and mathematics are completely exhibited. Inside, the building offers a dynamic learning environment with the latest technologies and a rich color palette.
These thoughtful and effective design strategies of the integrated design company Smithgroup are representative of the immense care and intention that were brought for every aspect of the development of the building. The Smithgroup team worked closely with CCSF officials, Kitchell Construction Management and worked together Collaborative design building Partners of Rudolph + Setten deliver a technical, compact and challenging project at the height of the Covid 19 pandemic and within a limited budget. The project asked the team to think in general and innovative in order to combine art and scientific education in a new and exciting way.
Committed and listen
The 124,000 square meter vapor building was part of a public bond of $ 845 million to update the City College apprenticeship area and to remedy the aging infrastructure. The CCSF administrators used part of the financing to prioritize steam formation, modernize outdated infrastructure and promote interdisciplinary knowledge in order to better prepare the students for a developing economy.
The Smithgroup and Rudolph + Setten team was awarded the project under the first project commissioned by the CCSF Community College District as part of the first progressive approach for design buildings. The team was commissioned to develop numerous programming, design and price options to maximize the budget of the college. In order to achieve this, Smithgroup design criteria created using the priorities and institutional goals of the stakeholders, which developed into a survey tool, with which faculties, employees and students were able to vote on aspects of the design that were best matched by the criteria. The team also used Brainstorming exercises to help university managers, to think more about interdisciplinary teaching and learning. The approach gave the stakeholders a feeling of creation and property, but also helped to identify spatial challenges and organizational opportunities.
Prioritize needs
The team was not only the challenge of adapting all programs and rooms within the compact footprint of the building.
“Steam is a relatively rare typology for university and community universities,” said Rosa Sheng, AIA, director of justice, equity, diversity & inclusion and university training, studio manager of the San Francisco office from Smith Group. “While Steam's interdisciplinary way of thinking is the goal, it is over space and costs to bring each department under one roof.”
The project team and the CCSF officials ultimately prioritized programs with the greatest infrastructure and space needs: chemistry, biology and 2D/3D art. The intention was to develop a highly transparent interdisciplinary hub for these programs and at the same time welcome the wider steam learning community. The solution was a simple structure to meet the efficiency of the building budget and the schedule, paired with the design concept of the stacking drawer. This enabled the interior of each floor to present the interdisciplinary nature of the building.
The first floor focuses on common teaching and collaboration rooms, while art lessons, faculty offices and biology laboratories houses on the second floor. Integrated laboratory and lecture areas for biology and chemistry on the upper floors. The project also introduced new tools and technologies. The anatomy laboratory now includes a corner of the body, there are new cuts in the chemistry laboratory, a greenhouse on the second floor for the biology department, and the art department includes an oven for ceramic and sculpture programs, delivery systems and chemical storage for printing graphics, colors and materials .
Artistic aesthetics
The steam building was referred to as a radical inviting, accessible interdisciplinary hub, which offers all users secure and comfortable rooms. It also had to fulfill the strategic goals of the college, to promote curiosity, creativity and cooperation and at the same time to ensure future resilience.
This passion that all members of the project team shared is reflected in several thoughtful design strategies. For example, an innovation center opens on the first level to the Outdoor Plaza and invites students and visitors to the building and at the same time presents the highly flexible areas Makerspace and Collaboration. In order to equip students for the career of the future, the state-of-the-art laboratory and art classrooms are designed for interdisciplinary education. The integration of welcome rooms for individual and group studies, tutoring and mentoring across all floors disturbs the obstacles to learning and commitment.
In order to continue to celebrate interdisciplinary learning, the team used the approach “The Art of the Sciences” and “The Science of the Arts” to catalyze a shift in pedagogy. The anatomy laboratory on the third floor, which examines the human body from a biological point of view.
“I love to explore the idea that the design of buildings on a campus can have profound effects on the interdisciplinary curriculum and the associated feeling of the collected community,” said Katz.
The team also developed a strategy in which firefighters in the queue enabled that each level was connected to each other with a feature staircase and student resource rooms. This intelligent interpretation of the code contributed to creating inviting “heart” that were uniformly uniform to social zones in every floor.
“It was important to combine all four floors in a very intended way both physically and visually,” said Jason Campbell, Faia, Noma, Associate and Design Lead at Smithgroup. “The centrally located open staircase area and the elevator core have a 4-story collage that is inspired by Diego Riveras” Pan American Unity “Aaural and distilled the tones and colors used in the original fresco.”
The mural and its color palette serve as the basis for the attachment of arts and sciences in the entire building. Different orange, yellow and blue tones from the mural distinguish every floor to support the finding. The color theme is also expressed in the corridors, the students' resource rooms, open staircase and toilets.
Find out more about the CCSF Steam Center, which was opened in January in the coming March/April Digital Edition by School Construction News.