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New San Francisco Architecture Tampa Art Museum If SFMOMA's bold architecture rivals the artwork inside, the Tampa Museum of Art in Tampa, Florida, exemplifies the opposite approach. San Francisco firm Stanley Saitowitz/ Natoma Architects, Inc., conceived of the building as a neutral frame for displaying art. The museum is a simple box with a layered, perforated aluminum facade atop a glazed pedestal. The building's setting on the Hillsborough River, adjacent to the city's Riverwalk, helps soften and humanize the hard-lined geometry. A large cantilevered overhang provides protected outdoor space for visitors to enjoy the surroundings. The building is divided down its center, around a courtyard, into two program types, one side with public exhibit space and the other for administrative support and research. The perforated wall pattern continues on the ceiling, punctuated by a series of skylights. Galleries begin on the second floor, at the end of a dramatic central stairway, faintly recalling New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art. To reduce construction time and waste, the project was built partially from prefabricated pieces. Its orientation, high-efficiency mechanical equipment, and tight building envelope help efficiently provide thermal comfort in Tampa's warm, muggy climate. ClimateWorks Foundation The ClimateWorks Foundation seeks to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions through enhanced energy standards, low-carbon energy supplies, and forest conservation. So the group naturally sought a highly sustainable design for its new headquarters. San Francisco's historic high-rise Russ Building (1927) was selected for the office location because of its many inherently energy-efficient features, such as narrow floor plates, operable windows, and proximity to public transit. Leddy Maytum Stacy Architects designed the renovation of 13,200 square feet (1,220 square meters) of space, which received a Platinum rating under LEED for Commercial Interiors 2.0. Even though it did not include an upgrade to the building's inefficient exterior skin, the project exceeds California's strict Title 24 energy-efficiency standards by 20 percent. Heat comes from existing steam radiators, upgraded with modern thermostat controls, while mechanical cooling is provided only in the large conference room, using an energy-efficient mechanical unit containing no CFC- or HCFC-based refrigerants. Energy consumption by HVAC was cut by an estimated 60 percent compared to code stipulations, largely through reliance on natural ventilation. About a quarter of the materials used in construction came from post-industrial recycled content, including steel framing, resin panels, aluminum door and window framing, ceramic tile made from recycled glass, and wood ceilings of Douglas fir reclaimed from a dismantled warehouse. Green Hall at UC Davis Over the past decade, the University of California, Davis, has transformed itself, particularly the school's South Entry Quad, with major building projects such as the Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts and the Buehler Alumni and Visitors Center. Maurice J. Gallagher, Jr. Hall continues this pattern. The program is divided into two buildings: a three-story structure containing faculty, staff, and student offices, meeting rooms, and classrooms for the Graduate School of Management; and a two-story conference center with a restaurant, ballroom, and offices. The two glazed lobbies and pedestrian bridge linking them define the entrance area. The university sought a building at least 20 percent more energy-efficient than Title 24 demands. Architect Sasaki Associates, working as part of an integrated design team with the general contractor and various subcontractors, sought to do even better and exceed the requirements of the 2030 Challenge from Architecture 2030. The $34 million, 82,000-square-foot (7,600-square-meter) project is expected to receive LEED Gold certification under LEED-NC 2.2. Conventional finishes and materials, such as suspended acoustical ceilings, were avoided in favor of systems such as radiant floor slabs that can satisfy multiple needs: structure, thermal comfort, acoustics, light-fixture attachment, and ceiling finish. This design process led to the development of three sustainable design strategies that were economical: radiant-core cooling and heating, a ground-source heat-exchange system, and a custom-engineered ventilated barrier-wall facade system. The project's final calculated energy savings are 27.1 percent over Title 24 requirements, as calculated using the required EnergySoft program, or 32.8 percent excluding process energy. However, the design team is aware of limitations of software in modeling radiant slabs, and has undertaken additional analysis, using IES software, that indicates energy savings in excess of 40 percent. According to the Energy Star web site, the energy usage reflects a 74-percent improvement over the typical office building, well beyond the 2030 challenge's goal of 60 percent reduction by 2010. Chinese Mining Heritage Part of an assemblage of Gold Rush-era buildings listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the Chinese Gambling Hall and General Store in Fiddletown, California, are among a dwindling number of structures associated with Chinese miners. Prior to a restoration designed by Garavaglia Architecture, the condition of the two circa-1850s, unreinforced masonry-and-stone buildings had been poor. Approximately 80 percent of the masonry walls suffered from cracks and other damage from unaddressed seismic movement and settling dating as far back as the 1930s. The overall goal of the project was to stabilize and preserve the buildings, on a budget of $456,000, while programming for interpretive uses was developed. Both the 841-square-foot (78-square-meter) General Store and the 981-square-foot (91-square-meter) Gambling House required significant structural stabilization and seismic upgrading. Bowed walls were hoisted back into place, and repointing was completed where applicable. Existing brick was carefully removed, cleaned, and reinstalled. Whenever possible, new brick was used only in the center wythe, and when the existing brick ran out, new brick was carefully matched. Wooden floorboards and joists were repaired, as was the roof on the General Store, and the Gambling Hall received a new shingle roof. Richmond Civic Center In the East Bay city of Richmond, Nadel Architects designed the restoration and expansion of the Richmond Civic Center, a complex originally master-planned and designed by Richard Neutra and Rudolf Schindler in the late 1930s, and executed by San Francisco architect Timothy Pflueger in the 1940s. >>> Discuss this article in the Architecture Forum...
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