TRANSCRIPT

00;00;00;00 - 00;00;05;13

Doug Patt (DP)

Let's go inside the vault. The design vault.

00;00;05;15 - 00;00;28;26

Christa Waring (CW)

It's only exterior work. Right now, we've just mobilized to start the brick restoration. We had great assistants getting a perfect match to the original white glazed brick that they have there. You want to make sure when you're doing this much brickwork that your spackle is right, and it doesn't stand out in the end. And Landmarks approves the work very easily.

00;00;29;03 - 00;03;30;29

DP

This is my guest, Christa Waring. I'll share more about her shortly in this episode from The Design Vault. We highlight Christa's project in New York City, 650 Park Avenue. 650 Park Avenue is located in the Upper East Side Historic District, built in 1963 and designed by Emery Roth and Sons Architects. It's a 21-story apartment building with a white glazed brick facade and setbacks above the 16th floor.

The base of the building maintains the building line of Park Avenue. Recent façade examinations revealed a deficiency in the wall tie system that connects the face masonry to the backup concrete block masonry. CTA designed a program of facade repairs that include face masonry pinning in addition to the restoration of all shelf angles across the façades. The original construction features have finished glazed edge over all the window lintels, which has an impressive impact on the esthetic of the building. Thus, the project entails an extensive masonry rebuild where matching the existing brick is of paramount importance.

Hi, I'm Doug Pat, and this is Design Vault.

Christa Waring is a principal at CTA Architects, P.C. in New York City. She's been with the firm since 1994. She received her Bachelor of Architecture from Pratt Institute. She's passionate about sustainable design and has a keen understanding of building code and zoning issues.

Christa drives her office's environmental research and implementation of green technologies, which includes adherence to lead and certified passive House design standards. She's worked on some of CTA's largest projects, including the 90,000 square foot mixed use Lower East Side Girls Club, Arabella 101, and the Grand Street Guild. Her recent projects include the award-winning exterior Preservation of the Cast Iron Facade at 54 Bond Street.

She also recently oversaw the completion of the conversion of an illegal SRO into low-income housing on the Upper West Side. One of her current projects includes a building rehabilitation project that's part of the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority's Retrofit New York pilot program. Christa taught at Pratt Institute and lectured for the New York City Urban Green Council and the Northeast Sustainable Energy Association.

She's also a member of the New York City Department of Buildings Construction Requirement and Materials Committee, and the New York City Energy Conservation Code, Commercial Advisory Committee. So welcome, Christin. It's nice to have you with us today. So, tell us a little bit about CTA architects, P.C. in New York City. So where are you guys located in New York. What's the size of the firm? How long have you been around and what type of work do you do?

00;03;31;02 - 00;04;46;14

CW

Well, thank you for having me today. CTA Architects. We're located down in the Flatiron District, just a couple of blocks from the Flatiron. We have 60 plus employees at this point, including support staff. We do a variety of work in New York City. All of our work is focused in the five boroughs, frankly, mostly Manhattan. We do have Brooklyn and Queens, some in Staten Island, a couple in the Bronx.

But we originally started out in 1987 or so. We came into being around the time that the first facade laws came into effect. And so, it was something that we naturally fell into. And we have been doing that work ever since I've been there since 1994. Our founding partner, Doug Cutsogeorge was my professor at Pratt and hired me as an intern in my second year there, and I have been there ever since.

So, I was an intern. I typed envelopes that when we had typewriters, I fax things and then went out and did field measurements and climbed around on ladders and hung on scaffolds. And 29 years later, still there. And I've been a partner since 2014.

00;04;46;17 - 00;04;49;16

DP

Real quickly, tell me about these façade laws. What is that?

00;04;49;23 - 00;05;55;20

CW

You know, my business partner Dan, could give you, like, every single date and iteration, but I'll give you the gist, which is that terracotta fell off a building at Columbia University and that initiated a city response, which was at that time called Local Law ten, which mandated that all buildings over six stories have to be inspected every five years by a registered professional and a report submitted to the Department of Buildings.

So, at that point, all of the buildings submitted on the same day, February 21st, every five years, and as the law developed, it keeps developing based on things that have happened in the city. At that point, it was just the street elevation and you just had to look at it with binoculars. Now it's the entire building and you have to look at it from a hanging scaffold or a bucket truck. And depending on the construction type, you have to open probes through the face masonry to expose what's in the cavity.

00;05;55;25 - 00;05;59;20

DP

Wow. So, the incident at Columbia was that in the early eighties?

00;05;59;21 - 00;06;09;27

CW

That was in the early to mid-eighties. So first it was Local ten and then it was local Law 11. And now it's called the Façade Inspection Safety Program.

00;06;10;05 - 00;06;14;05

DP

So, it sounds like a good thing. They're now inspecting buildings for this very issue.

00;06;14;12 - 00;06;25;23

CW

Right. And now they broke up the buildings. There are three sub cycles, so not every report for every building in the city is due on the same day. So now it's broken up. So that makes it a little easier.

00;06;25;26 - 00;06;32;12

DP

So, tell us a little bit about yourself. So how long have you been a practicing architect and what's your role in the office as principal?

00;06;32;19 - 00;06;53;26

CW

I got my license in 2003, But, you know, obviously I was working for the nine years before that. Currently, as principal, I do a lot of things. I wear a lot of hats. I yell at contractors, I hold clients’ hands and bring in work and put out fires where I need to.

00;06;53;28 - 00;06;55;02

DP

Do you like your job?

00;06;55;04 - 00;07;08;05

CW

I do. It is challenging. It's a lot. You have to really want to buy into it and invest. My partners, I've been with them almost 30 years. They're family and it's a good place to be. They're good partners.

00;07;08;12 - 00;07;11;15

DP

That sounds like a really interesting niche market.

00;07;11;17 - 00;07;33;01

CW

It is. And it's funny because, you know, there are a few firms in the city that do this, and we all know each other, and then we all get offshoots from employees have left and hung their own shingle and proceeded to sell focus and exterior restoration work. I would say it's about 70% of our work is exterior restoration.

00;07;33;06 - 00;07;38;04

DP

Gotcha. Let's talk about 650 Park Avenue. So how did you guys get the project?

00;07;38;06 -00;08;21;11

CW

So, I think, like everything in my history at CTA, it was word of mouth. It's kind of a tangled web. So, we use a consulting engineer who was working on a project out and Garden City, Long Island, and they needed an architect. So, he referred me to the owner, and the owner liked us and then brought us on to some of the more buildings that he owns in Brooklyn.

And then they were going around and around with their facade issues at the building that he lives in. And so, then he brought me in over there. So, it was all this chain. I always say, you never know who you're talking to when you're going to run into them again, who they are, who they end up being. To you and professionally. So that's how we got brought into the building.

00;08;21;18 - 00;08;29;07

DP

That's really interesting. So, could you give us a little history of the location? So, what was there prior to 1963, if you know?

00;08;29;13 - 00;08;43;23

CW

I do not know what was there prior to 1963, but it is a typical white glazed brick building of that era with the wedding cake setbacks. Also, during that construction period, the kind of problems that you find typically in that construction.

00;08;43;26 - 00;08;50;06

DP

So, the scope of the project then was only exterior work. Do you guys too any renovation work on the interior?

00;08;50;13 - 00;09;05;21

CW

It's only exterior work right now. We've just mobilized to start the brick restoration and we are going to visit with landmarks, redoing the ground floor, the base of the building as well.

00;09;05;23 - 00;09;07;20

DP

So, the project is currently underway.

00;09;07;26 - 00;09;08;24

CW

It's just started.

00;09;08;24 - 00;09;09;06

DP

Just getting rolling.

00;09;09;06 - 00;09;11;04

CW

Just getting rolling. It's exciting.

00;09;11;11 - 00;09;18;05

DP

So stylistically, the setbacks on those building that's due to the new laws in New York City at the time.

00;09;18;09 - 00;09;21;25

CW

Yes, those were due to zoning.

00;09;21;28 - 00;09;35;22

DP

Project restrictions - so when you guys are working on an exterior facade, what are the rules of the road? How do you guys end up doing a project like that? I would imagine that the exterior is all scaffolding at some point. What does the city make the contractor do?

00;09;35;24 - 00;11;06;28

CW

Okay, so first we started this project with, I would say, upwards of a hundred probes through the face masonry to really define what the issues were, because there was some debate over the extent of the repairs that were necessary. So, I spent a lot of time on the scaffold in the summer of 2022 looking at all the probes and really identifying the same repetitive problem over and over again.

We're just getting mobilized with hanging the rigs and part of all that entails is we had to file drawings at the Department of Buildings to get our permits and landmarks. Landmarks has to approve first, and we had great assistance getting a perfect match to the original white glazed brick that they have there. You would be surprised at how many iterations of white glazed brick there can be, but you want to make sure when you're doing this much brickwork that your speckle is right and it doesn't stand out in the end.

And Landmarks approves the work very easily. We didn't have any issues. I submitted to them the chip that we had custom made for the building. So that was great. To mobilize, the contractor has to pull scaffold permits, so he has to file with the city to install hanging scaffolds. There was already a sidewalk shed in front of the building to protect the pedestrians on the street. It's a corner building, so a lot of sidewalk shed that's been there for a while.

00;11;07;06 - 00;11;11;19

DP

So, let's back up. How did they know they had a problem? There were bricks falling off the building.

00;11;11;26 - 00;11;24;06

CW

It originally came up in a small exterior restoration project before our time that someone identified that they had a problem, and then it just kept developing from there.

00;11;24;10 - 00;11;29;05

DP

And how many sides were that exposed? Two or three. I understand it's a corner. Does it have a back side?

00;11;29;10 - 00;11;35;18

CW

Actually, it's L-shaped in the back. It has a number of large façades. It has the two large corner facades.

00;11;35;20 - 00;11;39;26

DP

So, the building's L-shaped and plan to then open up to a courtyard and-

00;11;39;26 - 00;11;40;05

CW

It does.

00;11;40;06 - 00;11;44;26

DP

Okay. How long does the project then take? Start to finish on a building this size?

00;11;44;28 - 00;12;12;26

CW

So, we're looking at completion in February of 2025. So, it's going to be about a year and a half on the ground. We have to install all of the pins. We have to pin the face masonry back to the backup block, which is a retrofit wall tie and first they pin and then we're going to strip all the shelf angles above and below the shelf angle and address the flashing and repaint the shelf angles.

00;12;12;26 - 00;12;22;12

CW

And sometimes we'll have to replace some of the angles and rebuild the masonry. And we have some parapet work to do, parapets that are not in good shape.

00;12;22;14 - 00;12;35;16

DP

So just so I understand that. So, they put up the scaffolding. Then you end up spending a bunch of time out there. I would imagine your partners are also out there. What I'm getting at is who identifies the structural issue? Who's the expert? Is it the architect?

00;12;35;24 - 00;12;36;27

CW

Oh yes, I did that. Yep.

00;12;37;03 - 00;12;45;06

DP

Interesting. You then document those issues in drawing form, like two dimensional drawings or 3D drawings and present them to somebody.

00;12;45;11 - 00;13;13;02

CW

Yes. Two dimensional drawings and photographs. I think the photos really speak a thousand words on this one. I presented it to the board. It's a condominium, so they have a board of directors and we met with them. I went over what I saw and the resident manager there was also very helpful, and he understands the situation and saw some of the probes that were open, that were closer to the ground and could confirm what we were telling them.

00;13;13;05 - 00;13;25;13

DP

So, you put together a set of drawings and is that priced like a typical architectural set of drawings by a GC? Is it then bid out and the lowest bidder is chosen? What's that process look like?

00;13;25;19 - 00;14;52;03

CW

So, we put together a set of drawings and construction details because we had opened so many probes, there were no questions. A lot of times when you work on a building and there are no existing drawings, which is probably 90% of the time for us, you're making assumptions about how things were built in the period of the building, right?

So inevitably you open it up and there's a surprise, sometimes a minor surprise, sometimes not so minor surprise. But this one, because we had had so many probes opened, we were able to really pin down what was behind the wall. So, we put together elevations, construction details and written specifications. We put them out to bid like the architects having a niche market in exterior restoration in New York City, there are also contractors who are a niche market for exterior restoration in New York City.

So, we bid to five or six or seven of those guys, the majority of whom I've known for many, many years. You know, we all work on the same stuff, and they select the bidder. Because it's private, it doesn't have to go to the lowest bidder. You know, we usually have an interview process so that the board can meet the contractor and get their feel for if they're a good match, that they're going to be a good match with building staff. So we go through the bidding process and then the contract is awarded and they do all that legal stuff on the side that I don't have to worry about.

00;14;52;08 - 00;14;58;04

DP

So, you guys do two dimensional drawings, details, any 3-D stuff? Not really necessary.

00;14;58;04 - 00;15;00;03

CW

Not really necessary for this type.

00;15;00;03 - 00;15;03;21

DP

And how many people end up working on one of your projects like this one?

00;15;03;24 - 00;15;11;00

CW

So, on this project, it was myself, our project manager, Freddy, and his staff member Arefa.

00;15;11;06 - 00;15;24;25

DP

So, let's get into the details. How does this work? Like, how do you do what you're doing? Are you just replacing bricks in specific areas? Are you replacing entire facades? And what does that detail look like?

00;15;24;28 - 00;15;33;29

CW

So, in the scope that we settled on, we are replacing the bricks along every shelf, angled the building, and this building has shelf angles that every floor.

00;15;34;02 - 00;15;36;11

DP

Explained to us what that is, a shelf angle.

00;15;36;13 - 00;16;11;02

CW

This is a concrete framed building. So, it has a concrete structure, and a shelf angle is a continuous steel lintel basically that holds up the masonry at every floor and it's bolted back to the concrete slab at regular intervals. There are shims and bolts, and it holds the slab in there. It holds the brick at every floor, provides the gravity support, and the wall ties provide lateral support. So, the shelf angles that this building were in very good condition. There are a few issues here and there, but nothing terrible.

00;16;11;02 - 00;16;11;20

DP

They’re all steel?

00;16;11;25 - 00;16;18;08

CW

They are steel like three by three, 4x4 angles. Some of them were shallow. So, we're making them a little deeper.

00;16;18;14 - 00;16;20;04

DP

Were they galvanized or painted?

00;16;20;09 - 00;16;46;03

CW

The original ones were not. They were painted. But when we go back, we go back with galvanized and stainless-steel bolts, and then we replace the shims and the bolts, obviously. And where we find a length of deteriorated shelf angle, we will replace that. We have an allowance for that in the contract to deal with that because there were some areas higher up on the building where they get, you know, more weather exposure that we're in worse condition.

00;16;46;05 - 00;16;49;10

DP

Tell us a little bit about the brick. How did you get the matches?

00;16;49;17 - 00;18;25;21

CW

Fortunately, this building hasn't had any huge projects on it, so it was fairly easy to identify which white glazed brick was the original brick, which was good because there were maybe three different bricks on it, different color, white base. You know, one was a little pink, one was a little white, or some had a brown speckle, some had a fine speckle, some had a varied speckle.

So, because there are so many setbacks, we were able to go to somebody's terrace where there hadn't been any work high up on the building because at the base at stone. So, I'm not comparing it at the base of the building. We also walked along the sidewalk shed because that gets you up higher. And we selected - we were like, okay, this is the original brick.

And then I reached out to King's. They are brick distributors in New York City, and the folks there were super helpful and made me all sorts of custom samples and they have little brick chips and brought the brick chips up to site and went through everything with the resident manager and decided on our brick. And then you mentioned in your intro the finished underside of the brick at all of the window lintels.

So, when you have a shelf angle you don't see in the field of the masonry, you don't see the underside, the clay body of the brick. But over the lentils you can see like the little yellow clay body of the brick. And I really got into the fact that it was finished on the underside. I think it's just a little bit like a perfect little thing that I really liked. So, we asked for that as well.

00;18;25;23 - 00;18;29;11

DP

Is that like a space that's about a half hedge, three quarters of an inch wide?

00;18;29;14 - 00;18;43;10

CW

Yeah, it's about a half an inch. If you have the right amount of bearing. And so, they put the glaze on the underside. So, the Masons have to be aware, obviously, when they're rebuilding to look for that. I'm sure I'll catch some in the beginning before they get used to it.

00;18;43;18 - 00;18;45;13

DP

Is it going to be hard to find a good mason?

00;18;45;19 - 00;18;51;10

CW

We have the contractor on board, and he has good masons on hand, so I'm not very worried about that.

00;18;51;16 - 00;19;01;08

DP

So, did you guys learn anything interesting through the construction process, through the inquiry process, anything unusual, Anything you'd never seen before?

00;19;01;14 - 00;20;11;10

CW

Not anything I've never seen before, thank goodness. Because those are never good surprises. I was happy, given the lack of wall ties, that I was happy to find that the backup masonry was still in good condition. We didn't have to worry about the backup masonry because that can also be an issue. We decided to pin the columns, which I was surprised actually worked because I had never pinned columns before because you're pinning into the concrete.

So, when you do the retrofit wall tie, you can call the manufacturers rep and he'll come out and do a test. He'll drill in the wall tie, and then he has like a crank to see what the force is, to see if the tie actually holds. And I had originally planned to strip all of the column locations in the building and rebuild that as well.

But on another project of mine, we had had pull tests done for retrofit pins on that building and they went into the columns, and I was like, wait, what? I didn't think that could happen. So, we called them out. We had had him do the tests in the field, in the masonry before, but we had him come back and do the pull tests and the columns and the pins drilled right in. So, it was great news.

00;20;11;17 - 00;20;15;13

DP

So, these are columns on the exterior facade behind the brick masonry.

00;20;15;16 - 00;20;31;04

CW

Right there, directly behind one wythe of brick behind the masonry. So, the backup concrete block goes right to the column. And then if you were to take all the face masonry off the building, you would see a grid of the columns with the backup block in between.

00;20;31;06 - 00;20;38;00

DP

And all the residents there. Do they get to live through the construction process?

00;20;38;02 - 00;21;04;06

CW

They do...Yeah. It's never pretty. It's just not. I feel bad, but there is going to be a lot of saw cutting, which is dusty. There is going to be a lot of drilling, which is loud. So, I hope that people at 650 Park, if you're listening, maybe you go back to working in the office for a while. What we do is loud and not anything that anyone wants to have to hear all day long if they're home.

00;21;04;08 - 00;21;08;02

DP

Back to the building for a second. I'm really surprised there were no drawings.

00;21;08;03 - 00;21;13;06

CW

We did have some the building super. The resident manager had some drawings.

00;21;13;08 - 00;21;21;10

DP

Yeah. What's always amazing. I mean, to go back further than that, people-built buildings from so little information, right? I mean, it's crazy.

00;21;21;14 - 00;22;05;26

CW

Yeah. So, we didn't really find any wall details. We had elevation drawings and then there's always elevation drawings, probably some plans and lots of plumbing drawings and mechanical drawings, which I don't need and are never accurate because they never built it that way anyway. And it was sixty years ago. So, lots of things have changed. So, we did go through the resident manager's giant bin of drawings in the beginning and got what we could use and it was helpful.

I mean, it helped us locate all of the columns along the facade, right? We wouldn't have had that if we didn't have the original drawings. It would have been more of a guess. But like in this project I said was knock wood a lot of guesswork so far.

00;22;05;29 - 00;22;16;02

DP

Yeah. And you talked a little bit about existing conditions and drawings. Is that something that you still do, do some existing condition sketches when you're out there and then somebody'll draw it up for you or.

00;22;16;09 - 00;22;56;00

CW

Oh absolutely. That's part of the process. You know, I went to site one day with my notebook and my pen and the contractor said, well, the girl who came last time had an iPad. And I said, I don't have an iPad. I have a notebook and a pen. They tried to give me an iPad, but I'm just more comfortable sketching it.

I feel like there is a connection between pencil and paper that makes you understand what you're looking at and what you're drawing. I don't know. When you go to architecture school, you don't really know anything when you start. And I started to understand through drawing, and I went to school in the era where there was no computer drafting.

00;22;56;00 - 00;22;56;16

DP

Yeah, I experienced the same thing.

00;22;56;21 - 00;23;13;25

CW

Yeah, I feel like there's a real connection and I think, you know, a lot of times there's an assumption that the computer program is the be all, end all. Not that just a tool and people don't really sometimes don't understand what it is that they're drawing because the computer's creating the detail.

00;23;13;28 - 00;23;15;14

DP

They miss it in the learning process.

00;23;15;19 - 00;23;35;24

CW

Yeah. And because we do what we do, that's not something that they teach. They don't teach that at school. I actually didn't have to take construction documents in school because I got credit for my job because I was doing actual construction documents. I worked full time. I went to school part time. So, it took me a very, very long time to graduate.

00;23;35;26 - 00;23;37;09

DP

Wow, that's impressive.

00;23;37;11 - 00;23;37;22

CW

Yeah.

00;23;37;29 - 00;23;42;20

DP

Christa, was sustainability an issue for you guys when you took on the project?

00;23;42;27 - 00;24;46;20

CW

Unfortunately, with this project, given the parameters of the scope, we could not really accomplish the integration of additional insulation in the cavity or something to that effect, moving forward, but in our office, we really focus on the concept of maintaining existing buildings and doing rehabilitations as sustainable practice. We have a sustainability coordinator that we brought on about two years ago.

She's fantastic. She keeps us honest. She's always regulating things, making sure we're composting, taking things out of the garbage can and putting them in the compost. We did a full led switch over on our lighting in the office pushed by her. She's changed our specs, you know, she'll give me and my partner Dan markups on the specifications with suggestions and we integrate that into our specifications. We do have a sustainable component in every job and some jobs, we can take it to a whole other level.

00;24;46;27 - 00;25;03;03

DP

Yeah, it would seem to me that have to go to the interior, right, and rip out all of the plasterwork and drywall and then reinsulate. So, I'm curious, a building like that, it gets a new facade, but it's not going to really change the R-value of the walls and it's still probably going to be a cold building.

00;25;03;06 - 00;25;28;21

CW

Right, there is that. And then a lot of times people say, well, I can put in these super-duper windows. And I'm like, Yeah, but your walls are not insulated at all. And you have a PTAC unit, which is basically a hole in the wall. So, you have to look at the balance of how to accomplish what it is you need to accomplish. But we look at the materials and the VOCs, and the location where things are made as well plays into sustainability.

00;25;28;21 - 00;25;29;29

DP

Yeah, it is what it is.

00;25;30;00 -00;26;06;06

CW

Yeah. I was on the Energy Code review Committee, as you mentioned, the advisory committee, but one of the reasons I signed up for that is because it does not answer existing buildings to the extent that I think it should, given that it's the New York City Energy Code and there's still some gaps in there. But, you know, we're conserving these buildings, we’re restoring them, we're not tearing down and building new ones.

And so that's good for the environment. But then how can we make a realistic energy code that you can apply to all of these existing conditions that we can't just change?

00;26;06;09 - 00;26;09;13

DP

I think it's wonderful. It's something most people don't think about.

00;26;09;20 - 00;26;38;04

CW

They don't know. And I lectured for Urban Green on the Energy Code. I gave a scintillating seven-hour long lecture. I ran out of words, though, during COVID, I couldn't do it on a screen. So, I tell my kids I ran out of words because there are a lot of words, but I think even sometimes the people that I was lecturing to depending on, you know, like you said, a normal architecture firm isn't thinking about this stuff because they're not dealing with existing building. They're dealing with a plot of land.

00;26;38;06 - 00;26;59;27

DP

So, Christa, you've been an architect for some time. Based on what you know today about being an architect, do you have any words of advice for either your younger self or young architects coming up? Because what you do is a little different - the 70% of the work that you guys do - is really very different from what many architects end up doing when they get out of school.

00;27;00;05 - 00;27;33;04

CW

One word of advice is not to be too married to the thought of what you think you want to do and to try different things, and you might really find something that surprises you, that you do. I've found along the way I've done some projects I would never imagine when I was in school that I would do something like that, and I really enjoyed it.

When you go to school, you have a vision, I'm going to do this. I want to do this. And if you just open yourself up to different projects and you might find something that really makes an impression on you.

00;27;33;11 - 00;27;35;23

DP

Yeah. What clearly worked for you?

00;27;35;25 - 00;28;13;05

CW

Yeah. And to my younger self, I don't know that I have advised my younger self because I don't know how much I've changed, but I always felt like if you're doing what you enjoy and you're with people that you enjoy doing it with, then little things that might be irksome to contemporary youth don't really register. They're not important in the long run, and you have to see the big picture.

I mean, did I think when I was hired, did I think when I was 23, someday I’ll own the company? No, I didn't think that, but it happened. So you never know. Hard work and a lot of luck is what gets you where you want to be.

00;28;13;10 - 00;28;19;29

DP

Christa, it's been great to have you here. Thanks for your time. Where can people go to learn more about CTA architects and yourself?

00;28;20;02 - 00;28;44;21

CW

We have a website. It's www.ctaarchitects, all one-word dotcom where we showcase all of our finest work. Sometimes people look at our website and get a little, oh that's very fancy, but I always say it's your portfolio, it's your best, but there's everything in there. There's all this stuff that we do that doesn't make it to the portfolio level that's necessary.

00;28;44;24 - 00;28;46;15

DP

Well, thank you very much. Been great to have you.

00;28;46;19 - 00;28;51;09

CW

Thank you for having me. It was nice talking.

TRANSCRIPT

00;00;00;02 - 00;00;05;13

Doug Pat (DP)

Let's go inside the vault. The design vault.

00;00;05;16 - 00;00;27;11

Tom Loftus (TL)

So we really had to be mindful of availability of product and the budget. So this is what started driving us to start playing with different bonding patterns. If we stack the brick one way versus another way, if we do a running bond versus a stack bond versus a Flemish bond, how can we play around with our stacking patterns and try to make something unique?

00;00;27;13 - 00;02;46;23

DP

This is my guest, Tom Loftus. I'll share more about him shortly. In this episode from the Design Vault, we highlight Tom's 389 Weirfield Project in Brooklyn, New York. 389 Weirfield in Brooklyn is a 12 story 50,000 square foot rental project consisting of 66 residential units, a common roof deck, library and cafe. The building was constructed along with a second at 378 Weirfield just across the street.

The building features a very unique singular masonry facade we'll discuss today. The sole decorative facade is done in undulating rail like bricks, which is in a creative vertical design. The bricks are dark and called Ebonite Smooth. They protrude in patterns at equally spaced cadence as the facade climbs. The windows are set apart from the vertical masonry bands with frames of varying height, which capture the windows between the horizontal spans. The singular brick facade was a unique way of setting apart a building that might otherwise be much like any other.

Hi, I'm Doug Pat and this is Design Vault. Tom Loftus has a bachelor degree in architecture from New York Institute of Technology. He also has a certificate in business management from Cornell University and is a licensed architect in New York.

Tom's first exposure to working in the architectural field came from a job in wood frame construction. After a number of years working in Westchester County, he brings over 20 years of project management experience to outgoing architects. As studio director, he has extensive knowledge and experience in project management, schematic design, design, development, construction drawings, design quality and project construction.

He's also a leader in building and maintaining client relationships, managing teams’ workloads, plus client and consultant coordination. So welcome, Tom. It's nice to have you with us today. So tell us a little bit about Aufgang Architects in Suffern New York. So where are you guys located in Suffern? What's the size of the firm? How long has it been around and what kind of work do you guys do?

00;02;47;01 - 00;03;37;20

TL

Great, first and foremost. Thanks a lot, Doug, for having me on the podcast today. I'm really excited to be here. So we're located here in downtown Suffern, right down the street from the train station pretty close to central Manhattan. So our firm is about 50 people right now. We primarily do residential work. I'd say about 90% of our work is in the residential field.

We do everything from low rise to high rise buildings, primarily in the five boroughs. But we also have projects in the tri state area and a few scattered around the country as well. A lot of those projects are mixed use with commercial on the first, second or few floors and then residential apartments above. The residential work that we do ranges in everything from luxury condos all the way to homeless shelters and really a range of everything in between.

00;03;37;22 - 00;03;39;28

DP

So how long has Aufgang Architects been around?

00;03;40;05 - 00;04;19;22

TL

Outgoing has been around. I think we're going about 50 years now. Ari is the third owner of the company, and when I started, I worked together with Ari and our former principal, Hugo, and they partnered for a while and he had also taken over the firm from someone else. So probably in the early seventies, if I have my history of the firm correct.

We started in Rockland County doing small scale residential rehab work and grew in time and in size with our clients and our work type from one partner to the next, and really have kept our foot in our roots in residential and then grown laterally in the industry.

00;04;19;25 - 00;04;27;22

DP

Tom, tell us a little bit about yourself. How long have you been practicing architecture and your role as studio director?

00;04;27;25 - 00;05;16;29

TL

Sure. It feels like forever. Honestly, every once in a while I wonder, am I still really doing this? But I've been in the architecture field now just a little over 20 years, and I started working in Westchester County. Small scale wood frame, residential. It was a natural stepping stone for me. After I got out of high school, I thought I want to be a framer.

And after getting really tired of carrying three quarter inch plywood up a ladder, I said, Nope, time to go back to school and study architecture. And from there I worked at a variety of firms in Manhattan, in Westchester County, doing a variety of different work. And when I found this firm, the scale work that we were doing, the residential work, it tied into something I loved with my single family housing experience.

It kind of stuck and I ended up staying here for quite a while.

00;05;17;01 - 00;05;23;25

DP

It's a long time practicing as an architect. I kind of say the same thing about or to myself about how long it's been.

00;05;23;27 - 00;06;23;12

TL

Sure, I've really grown in the company here. It's been a fantastic partnership with Ari. When I started, I came in really as an assistant project manager. A lot of my experience was not relative to the scale of the projects we were doing, although in other firms I was working in a bit of a leadership role running point on smaller scale projects, so it took a little time to learn the ropes, if you will, in the different construction types.

And I've moved up into the role of studio director now, so I work very closely with our senior management and the rest of our senior staff looking at our workload, our resource management, project proposals, client relationships and really stay involved with the team from the very start of the project until close out to handle the day to day operations of the office as a whole.

Ari, myself and our controller meet frequently to talk about some of the more boring business side of things and then the more fun happens working with the architects on the day to day and the projects.

00;06;23;15 - 00;06;33;19

DP

So let's dig in here and talk about this very interesting facade of yours. How did your office get the project, or is this a project that the office created?

00;06;33;21 - 00;07;57;02

TL

Yeah, this was actually an interesting project that came at a time when everything started shutting down right at the start of the COVID pandemic. And we had a really good recommendation from a long time client that we had worked with, and we had met a new client remotely who was involved on the construction side of things, and we hit it off.

We started talking and it was the first time ever that I met someone virtually and had meetings like this on screens, and we were trying to build a new professional working relationship. So it was very unique in the way that the project started. And again, we do a lot of our work really based on recommendations. We really pride ourselves in building good relationships with our client base, and that's really how the project got started.

They had this unique property in Bushwick and if you know the area in Brooklyn at all, it's a lot of small scale row housing, if you will, maybe 3 to 4 storeys and there really aren't too many open lots. And in this particular project it was unique. There was a large portion of the lot that had an easement that couldn't be built on it, and it provided a good amount of air rights which allowed us to follow the zoning path to do a much taller building than you usually would see in this neighborhood.

Most of the buildings were very close together, and that's really how it started and how the project grew and how we ended up with a 12 storey building in the middle of Bushwick.

00;07;57;05 - 00;08;04;19

DP

So did you guys know right away that you were going to be able to make a tall building there, or did it take a little bit of examination first?

00;08;04;21 - 00;08;48;13

TL

It took a little bit of examination. Usually what we do as architects is we really try to help guide our clients to bring their projects to fruition. This is the property I have. What can you build? How much can you build? There are two different zoning parts you can follow, primarily three different zoning parts in New York City that will help you establish the bulk, the height, the size of the building.

So we'll study that first and foremost with our clients and present them the different options. And based on the geometry of this lot, when we saw the potential to get a little height on this building, be separated from the other surrounding residential buildings, it gave them a nice opportunity to have a building with some great potential for views in an otherwise low height area.

00;08;48;15 - 00;08;53;12

DP

So what was the scope and the programmatic requirements for the project once you got rolling?

00;08;53;14 - 00;09;32;03

TL

Typically and specifically to this project, our scope was everything from working with the development team to help them flush out the parameters of their funding program. So when you work with different agencies in New York City and in the state and you're following certain guidelines to provide certain square footages and distribution of units, we work right at the very beginning with them to help them find the right mix and size of units, right with the development team.

From there, we work through design and construction administration all the way until the close of the project. So we really gave soup to nuts services here. Full scope on the building.

00;09;32;05 - 00;09;48;24

DP

So let's talk a little bit about the building design stylistically. So you guys designed quite a unique facade, while the other three facades, from what I can tell from the photos, are relatively subdued. Tell us about the main idea behind this.

00;09;48;26 - 00;11;17;22

TL

First and foremost, we love Brick. Brick as an architect, for us, it's really a timeless material and it's a durable material and it fits in really well to so many different urban fabrics in so many different places. In my opinion, what made 389 unique was the timing that this project was happening. It was happening at a time where the future was uncertain.

We didn't know what was going to come of this pandemic. We had to be incredibly mindful of the budget. Many times we like to create building facades that are two different materials having a nice dialog or different color bricks. So we really had to be mindful of availability of product and the economics, the budget, and really try to come up with something that would be unique but be something that the client could achieve.

So this is what started driving us to start playing with different bonding patterns if we stacked the brick one way versus another way, if we do a running bond versus a stack bond versus a Flemish bond, how can we play around with our stack in patterns and try to make something unique? So that was really what started pushing us in this direction of going with a single color brick and then really focusing on how to find a challenge enough for the mason that they don't hate us and say these are architects of the worst.

Have something be achievable for them. But that also will give a nice unique context to the neighborhood.

00;11;17;25 - 00;11;24;28

DP

Were there any aesthetic reviews of the building before you guys got rolling with the city?

00;11;24;28 - 00;11;49;21

TL

With the city for this particular project, there were no agencies on the city or state side that had any reason to opine on the design. We were not going for any variances. We didn't really have to go to the community board, although we did not need their aesthetic approvals. It is something that we're always mindful of working within the urban fabric and how it's going to lend itself to the context of the neighborhood is always an important consideration of ours.

00;11;49;23 - 00;12;01;09

DP

So let's back up just a little bit. So the building plan, are we talking rectangle, square, relatively straightforward. Then of course, there's parking on the site. You had said that there was a portion of the site that you could not build on.

00;12;01;11 - 00;13;07;01

TL

That's correct. So for this particular massing to make this building work, the footprint was rather small. It actually made a very efficient floor plate with a very tight core of stairs, elevator and corridor, and then apartments around all sides of that. So it really became a very compact, high efficiency floor plate with very little loss factor. And it was something that we were able to just work all the way up the building.

So there were quite a bit of revisions back and forth, variations that we had worked on to find the right mix and balance of that to fit within the envelope. The same thing then translated to the facade a bit earlier we were talking about what did the design iterations look like there, through the whole process of finding the right solution and the facade design that we felt was the right match for this building.

We did digital 3D models, plenty of sketches and even on site mockups working together with the Masons saying, We know you can do this, we believe in you, please don't kill us. And did plenty of mock ups there to really work it out.

00;13;07;03 - 00;13;11;25

DP

Was it a challenge finding a good mason, or did you guys have somebody lined up right off the bat?

00;13;11;27 - 00;14;04;09

TL

I think that's really one of the keys. You have to have really good subs. So whatever the type of work you're doing in this case, the Masons, you need to have a good working relationship with them. And often it's the architect working directly with the general contractor. But in these cases we invited the Masons into the architecture meetings, we invited them into the AOC meetings towards the end and said, Look, let's work through some of these details.

Let's talk through it. How is this going to work? It wasn't incredibly complex or challenging, but we wanted to make sure that the person who was directing their team to install the Brick really felt confident that they could achieve what we were looking for. We never wanted to come out on site and say, This is all wrong. That's not what we want to do.

And I really think engaging with those professionals early on is important to try to get the end result that you're looking for.

00;14;04;12 - 00;14;16;20

DP

Yeah, we try to bring in a contractor at schematic design. Once we wrap up schematic design, we have them price the project. This is in high and residential work that I do. So single family homes.

00;14;16;22 - 00;14;33;09

TL

Right? And in this case we didn't have a mason lined up. We didn't have a recommendation. The developer slash contractor, they were one and the same here. They had already had an existing relationship with this Mason and we started just working with them early on in the process.

00;14;33;11 - 00;14;54;17

DP

So could you do your best to describe the evolution of the design of that facade and then try to describe the facade? I'm going to encourage our listeners to go to the Glen-Gery site and take a look at some of these photographs because it's really striking. I've never seen anything like it. It's a great idea. The clients must have been thrilled when you presented the drawings.

00;14;54;19 - 00;17;33;18

TL

Thank you very much for that. We've seen a lot of example of brick facade that has quite a bit of movement in it, and these brick facades more often than not, are panelized prefab, and that's a way that you can achieve quite a bit of movement with brick using this idea of this undulation and this movement in the brick as an inspiration.

That's what triggered us to start thinking about how a brick pattern, the stacking pattern, really might help us achieve what we wanted to do here. So if our listeners are familiar with Brick parents, which I hope they are, we're in a brick podcast, we utilized a Flemish bond pattern and a running bond pattern. So the Flemish bond pattern has a standard brick with the long face.

The following brick is then rotated 90 degrees with the short face and the pattern is repeated. Taking this idea of combining a Flemish bond pattern with a running bond pattern, we now have these bricks that are half size, if you will, square proportion to create the movement and the undulation throughout the facade. We detailed a Flemish bond pattern with a large number of running bond, then a increasing increment of Flemish bond and a decreasing increment to running bond.

So we took the pattern and as you got closer to the center of the pattern we created, you had a higher frequency of Flemish bond. And as you moved away towards the end of the pattern that moved vertically up the building, it was stretched out with more running bond. So that's a lot of back and forth with different bond patterns.

Ultimately, by having that Flemish bond brick, we then protruded it out from the facade in the center of the pattern where the Flemish bond patterns are stacked very closely together. The bricks protruded the largest amount. And then as that pattern was separated and pulled apart from top to bottom, the brick became closer and closer to the facade.

So we basically created a formula that the mason can follow. For every increment, the brick would step out a half inch further, and this is what gave the facade that undulation, as you move up the bricks, steps out and back in by using this bonding pattern. It also created a really dynamic shadow which was something that we really loved.

When the sun hits the building the right way, you get a really fantastic shadow where you have that brick and it just really, in my opinion, created a beautiful cadence that worked through that pattern.

00;17;33;21 - 00;17;41;27

DP

So it really does remind one of Braille. So how far what's the furthest protrusion for one brick?

00;17;42;00 - 00;18;01;07

TL

I do like that description of Braille. You instantly have an image in your mind of these protruding points that they create the pattern. The furthest protrusion is about two and a half inches at the center of the pattern. And then as it works its way down in half inch increments, it goes back down to zero and the pattern becomes flush.

00;18;01;10 - 00;18;20;02

DP

So you guys said that you worked on this in 2D and in 3D. I would imagine if you did some sun studies, you got a better sense for how much shade and shadow was going to be produced by these protruding bricks? Did you do the project in BIM? Is it Revit? Because I saw 2D drawings of this?

00;18;20;04 - 00;18;42;25

TL

Yes. It isn't Revit. It is a BIM project. While we were in the design phase, we actually used a few different softwares SketchUp and Enscape and Revit along with AutoCAD, and we really did a series of 2D sketches, 2D drawings and 3D studies, partial facade studies. Just to get a sense of how this all might look.

00;18;42;28 - 00;18;49;26

DP

And how many iterations ultimately did you go through? I mean, big iterations, like is it two or three or ten or?

00;18;49;28 - 00;19;42;12

TL

Once we just came to the conclusion that we need to stick with a singular color brick here in the front, I'd say we probably had about ten different versions. It's a slim, tall building with very large windows, really trying to maintain a nice modulation of those windows in that spacing, but also then maintain a standardized brick dimension. So for a long time we were playing around with the inches of the bricks so that we were at a half size brick or full size brick.

Should we use a stack bond and emphasize the verticality of the building? How often should we introduce a horizontal element so that it's not looking like a stack of pancakes, for lack of a better expression? So really, we had a good amount of iterations here until we got to the point where we really like the running bond, Flemish bonds.

00;19;42;14 - 00;19;58;19

DP

I like the way you describe that. From what I remember looking at these photos, the windows are framed out differently. So you have a series of windows which have an individual frame, and then at one point in the building, that frame actually wraps a few stories of windows, right? So you break up the facade that way, too.

00;19;58;19 - 00;20;26;03

TL

Exactly. Playing with the verticality of the building, we did group a series of windows, two windows stacked vertically, three windows stacked vertically and created a frame around those windows. And this helped take that 12 story building and just give it a little bit of scale as it moved up the building. So these groups have two vertical windows that are now framed together.

Then also had the movement of the undulating brick happening between them.

00;20;26;05 - 00;20;28;28

DP

You guys really thought through it. It's a real beautiful facade.

00;20;29;04 - 00;20;29;29

TL

Thank you.

00;20;30;01 - 00;20;34;06

DP

So how big was the team that worked on the project? Just a few people?

00;20;34;08 - 00;21;17;08

TL

Every project is staffed with a dedicated associate director who are all registered architects, a project manager, and then the support staff. When we were in the design phase, we had the project manager working together with one of our designers. So we really had a team of to playing around with this and then bouncing the idea back off of the associate on the project.

Then once we really ramped it up into production, we would stack two or three people on the project. As you get closer to submission deadlines and trying to get into the Department of Buildings to get permits done, we would build the team up. Usually there was always at least two people on the project that were always there from day one.

They haven't left the project and they stayed on from beginning to end.

00;21;17;10 - 00;21;26;09

DP

So how long did it take to build the building? I would imagine it was pretty cool watching that facade go up. First couple stories. You must have been thinking, Wow, man, this is going to be something.

00;21;26;12 - 00;21;51;29

TL

You know, the construction team, they did a fantastic job. They had a really good crew out there. And around 24 months, the building went up and then all the fine details coming out of the pandemic. It was interesting. There were certain trades that just took longer because of materiality, distribution chain, supply chain, availability of product, which threw little curveballs here and there.

But all in all, the sequence and timing was fairly smooth.

00;21;52;01 - 00;22;01;13

DP

So it seems like I learned something new every project. Was there anything that you guys learned while you were out in the field or doing these drawings or dealing with the client?

00;22;01;16 - 00;22;48;06

TL

There certainly was. You know, I had spoken about the Mason earlier on, and that was certainly a good lesson. Building a good relationship with your Mason early in the project is really important and I joke about it. Sometimes they look at the architect's details and think, Are these guys crazy? We're not going to build this. There's going to be a better way to do it.

And I think that was really the big lesson we took here, establishing that good relationship and also giving the tradesmen the respect that they deserve. They're installing the work. They know some of the nuances of how this gets installed and taking that into consideration, finding that common ground so that you don't bring your ego into the conversation and giving them that professional respect and you're going to get it back.

That was definitely a good lesson here.

00;22;48;08 - 00;23;16;16

DP

That seems like a lesson I've learned over and over again throughout my career. When you're young, you go out there and you think you know everything and you've got an answer for everything, or you're going to fake your way through it, or however you choose to deal with it. But as you get older, you realize that these people that you're working with, many of them have an awful lot of experience, and it would be a good idea to sit and listen to them and actually ask them questions rather than tell them what to do.

00;23;16;18 - 00;23;38;10

TL

That's right. And I always find that working with our up and coming project managers and our younger staff, it's always those lessons that you try to instill in them. It helps them understand how to build those relationships because this industry is built on relationships and if we can do that, we're going to navigate successfully through any project.

00;23;38;13 - 00;23;58;03

DP

Well, you guys have been around a long time, 50 years. Goodness gracious. That's incredible. Congratulations, Tom. You've been an architect for over two decades. Based on what you know today about being an architect, do you have any words of advice for your younger self or maybe some young architects working their way up the ranks?

00;23;58;05 - 00;24;13;16

TL

Yes, don't worry. It's going to work out, if you love it, stick with it. It's a long road. And just when you think maybe you should change your major, you might still be out of college 20 years and asking yourself, Should I change my major? If you love it, stick with it. It's rewarding.

00;24;13;19 - 00;24;28;05

DP

That's really funny. I feel like I've changed my major all the time.

My goodness. So, Tom, it's been great to have you here. Thanks for your time. Where can people go to learn more about Wolfgang Architects and yourself?

00;24;28;07 - 00;24;38;19

TL

They can go right to our web site at Aufgang.com and they can find all the information about us there. They can follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter and all the different platforms.

00;24;38;21 - 00;24;45;21

DP

Well, thank you very much, Tom. It's been great. And I encourage people to go to the site and take a look at this very interesting building. Thank you.

00;24;45;29 - 00;24;50;18

TL

Doug. I really appreciate it. It was great chatting with you here today. I had a great time.

00;24;50;21 - 00;25;18;12

DP

Awesome. Thank you.

TRANSCRIPT

00;00;00;02 - 00;00;05;13

Doug Pat (DP)

Let's go inside the vault. The design vault.

00;00;05;15 - 00;00;36;09

Rob Clocker (RC)

This collection of blocks has several landscaped alleys to help connect people from front to back. So having pedestrian connections through the block were an important part of the planning of the project. The project itself is a fairly typical four and five stories of housing overtop of a parking podium kind of housing project, which you see all over the country.

But we had hoped to blend it in with the neighborhood, of course, and so had to find ways to tie it together.

00;00;36;11 - 00;03;34;04

DP

This is my guest, Rob Clocker. I'll share more about him shortly in this episode from The Design Vault. We highlight Rob's project, 55 Brighton Avenue in Boston, Massachusetts. 55 Brighton is a mixed use commercial project that marks the completion of the Packard Crossing housing development in the Allston neighborhood of Boston. The building transforms a once underutilized site that previously housed retail and parking lots.

Transform the site into a vibrant and sustainable addition to the community. The architecture pays homage to the area's manufacturing heritage. The design concept reflects the vibrant streetscape patterns and automotive detailing. The building contains nearly 100,000 square feet of finished space, with an additional 70,000 square feet allocated to structured parking. The project reinterprets the rhythms and scale of the surrounding block, while paying homage to the area's automotive heritage.

The facade, with its distinctive folded fan like design, draws nostalgic inspiration from the wing tails of iconic 1950s automobiles. This design move prompted by the adjacent historic Packard Manufacturing facility. The brick details tie into the fabric of the neighborhood and add warmth and familiarity. While metal panels at the top floor create a dynamic visual contrast to the brick facade.

The complex embraces sustainable design strategies and materials such as low flow fixtures, solar panels and groundwater recharge. Hi, I'm Doug Pat and this is Design Vault. Hi. Rob Clocker holds a master of architecture degree from MIT and an undergraduate degree in architecture from the University of Virginia. Previously a senior associate at Perkins and Will in San Francisco. He's now a vice president and managing principal at Hacin, an award winning interdisciplinary architecture and design firm in Boston.

With 30 years of experience and award winning renovation and new construction projects. Rob's worked on buildings from office towers to land ports of entry. During his time in Hacin, he completed the Whitney Hotel in Beacon Hill, The IIDA New England award winning ideas. Cambridge Public Garden Townhouse and 55 Brighton Avenue. He's also managing the ongoing mixed use development at 41 Berkeley Street.

As an advocate for stewardship of the built environment, he's spoken on adaptive reuse and sustainable design. Rob is a registered architect, LEED accredited professional and member of the Ipswich Zoning Board of Appeals. So welcome, Rob. It's nice to have you with us today. So tell us a little bit about Hacin Architecture and Design firm in Boston. So where are you guys located in the city?

What's the size of the firm? How long have you been around and what type of architectural and design work do you do?

00;03;34;07 - 00;04;42;16

RC

Thank you, Doug. It's really great to be here with you. Hacin is, as you mentioned, an interdisciplinary design firm where 35 people we take the word interdisciplinary pretty seriously. We have architects, we have interior designers, we have visual and graphic designers. And we think of that because as a concept driven firm, we like to take the idea of the design all the way from the outside of the architecture to the inside and throughout to the entire experience.

The firm is located in the south end of Boston, which is one of Boston's many historic neighborhoods. It was founded 30 years ago by our founding principal. David Hacin started at his dining room table and gradually built up to the 35 people we have today. And all that time has been in the South end. So in some sense, we're a neighborhood architecture firm.

In another sense, we think we've learned how to build buildings and do design in places that people love in ways that they recognize. We like to joke that the buildings we build are ones we ourselves are going to have to live with ten, 20, 30 years from now.

00;04;42;19 - 00;04;47;03

DP

So you were at Perkins and well, for a little while and then ultimately found Hacin.

00;04;47;05 - 00;05;36;12

RC

It's a little bit of a convoluted story but yes, those are the facts. My career trajectory had me moving across the country four times to California and back to Boston, and I did each of those moves twice. But the last time when I was in California, I worked with Perkins and Will, and that experience was quite formative in terms of some of the things we may be talking about today because we were an outgrowth of another local firm in San Francisco, which did a lot of adaptive reuse work.

And in that role, I was able to learn surprisingly quite a bit about Brick, even though we were in San Francisco, where you don't think of that as a building material. And there's quite a bit of historic architecture out there, as you might imagine. So learning to work in that context set the stage for some of the projects I do today.

00;05;36;15 - 00;05;47;25

DP

So you've been Hacin how seen relative to all of the other things that you've done in the practice of architecture?

00;05;47;27 - 00;06;31;12

RC

My current role, which is relatively new one, starting as of last year, I'm managing principal of the firm, our founding principal, after 30 years, and a lot of growth, decided that it would be a good idea to get a new batch of principals. So we have five of us now, in addition to David Hacin and as the managing principal.

My job, of course, is to try to help us stay focused on the business side of the practice, which, as you may know, as an architect, isn't the most fun part. However, it does matter tremendously, and I like to think of it as fundamental to helping us do the great design work we do, because ultimately, if we don't do good business work, we're not going to be able to do great design work.

00;06;31;15 - 00;06;37;25

DP

So true. So let's dig in here and talk a little bit about the project. How did you guys get the work?

00;06;37;27 - 00;07;38;12

RC

Sure. As with many projects in Boston, it's a very much relationship based city. This owner, the Hamilton Company, is old company and one of the largest landlords in Boston founded by Harold Brown. And in that very neighborhood that the project exists, we developed a relationship with them and they reached out to us specifically because they understood that we knew how to fit new buildings into existing neighborhoods, as well as to help owners like this company navigate the sometimes complex approvals process, which you find in many East Coast cities.

And Boston is certainly one that has its web of interested parties in every project. The Hamilton Company, however, because of being a longstanding company, has very good relationships with the neighborhood, with neighborhood association owns as well as the city. And so it was a good partnership in coming up with a design that would appeal to a lot of different factions.

00;07;38;14 - 00;07;45;19

DP

So tell us a little bit about the site, the history of the location, what was there and what you guys ultimately built.

00;07;45;21 - 00;08;45;14

RC

This site, which is an area called Packard's Crossing, which is so named because originally it was a location of a Packard car manufacturing plant, is a mixed use site. It has a lot of Boston rowhouses that go further down the street from our location. But the location of the particular project did have some of those more industrial uses.

And in the more recent years it had been transformed somewhat into parking lots and some low rise retail in ways that weren't necessarily sensitive to the neighborhood. As it happens, one of those buildings was the owners primary headquarters, and so it was a very near and dear to them that they do something on this site, which was good.

And because this was their headquarters, they owned numerous properties that adjoins. So they undertook a master planning process with us to think about how they could not only develop a 55 Brighton but 83 Gardiner, which is nearby and tie it all together in a sensitive way.

00;08;45;17 - 00;08;51;19

DP

So what was the ultimate scope and what were the programmatic requirements for the project? The building you designed.

00;08;51;21 - 00;09;52;29

RC

The program for 55 Brighton, on the face of it, is a fairly straightforward program. It's 77 rental units, a housing and parking garage for that housing as well as retail that would line Brighton Avenue, which is a mixed use street. The more interesting or maybe effective overlay of that program is that this collection of blocks has several landscaped alleys to help connect people from front to back.

The streets in this neighborhood aren't necessarily as frequent as some city streets are. And so having pedestrian connections through the block were an important part of the planning of the project, as well as part of the approvals for the project. And the project itself is a fairly typical four and five stories of housing overtop of a parking podium kind of housing project, which you see all over the country.

But we had hoped to blend it in with the neighborhood, of course, and so had to find ways to tie it together.

00;09;53;01 - 00;10;20;18

DP

Yeah, it's an interesting building. So you guys had to do a bunch of things with the architect. Sure. You used a lot of masonry out there, various colors, but the brick patterning and specifically stylistically the building facade as it sort of peels away in a number of locations. Very interesting. So the building's contemporary, particularly the cantilevered folding panels, and yet you utilize brick and various traditional patterns and colors.

So tell us a little bit about that.

00;10;20;21 - 00;12;26;05

RC

Sure. Our approach to the design of the facade, especially on Brighton Avenue, was the kind we take to many of our projects, which is to look carefully at the context. We look at not only what's built today, but what was built in the neighborhood previously and of course, like many of these traditional neighborhoods, there's a strong rhythm of bays and of brick along the street, which on one hand we wanted to pick up some kind of rhythm, but on the other hand, we certainly didn't want to just mimic it.

That's always the challenge we have as designers is how do we build something for today in a neighborhood from yesterday? So what we chose to do in this case, as you mentioned, is we peel the brick facade back in a regular rhythm of bays, which echoes those bays further down the street. But we do it in a way that isn't just your traditional symmetrical bay.

It lifts the facade apart in a sense. So when you're looking at it from one direction, you see a rhythm of brick bays. When you look at it from the other direction, it looks like a number of vertical metal turrets that are more reflective of what you see beyond because in that direction you're looking towards downtown, where you see a lot of the towers of downtown Boston.

So that was an important design aspect as well that you had a different experience of this building from one direction than you do from the other. And then one other aspect of that design choice has to do with how brick is used today. We no longer build load bearing brick walls. There's a lot of reasons for that, as much as we love them, but there are many, many load bearing brick walls in Boston.

So when we peel these elements back, we're just using face brick cavity wall construction like you see on all contemporary construction. But we wrapped it around, so it's the thickness of a load bearing wall, but you can still see that it's suspended in there. It's a little bit of a tongue in cheek acknowledgment of it's both symbolic of a load bearing material, but also it's being used in a way that's contemporary as a way to clad the building and give it a sense of identity.

00;12;26;08 - 00;12;37;26

DP

So let's back up just for a second. I always like to ask the architects about the project restrictions they had in regard to zoning or historical requirements. Could you talk a little bit about that?

00;12;37;28 - 00;12;45;19

RC

This project, like everywhere in Boston, as I mentioned, we have a robust approvals process for any larger projects.

00;12;45;19 - 00;12;50;06

DP

I like the word robust, it's very respectful.

00;12;50;13 - 00;13;49;06

RC

All the intentions are good. Sometimes it can become complex. Of course, this project is larger than would have normally been allowed by the underlying zoning, so it went through this process to approve a larger building and part of those approvals then have a lot to do with review of the design to make sure that the design is going to mitigate the scale of the building fit into the neighborhood in ways that we hope we've been able to be successful here, and that also there are elements to the design which contribute to the neighborhood, which gets back to some of those connections in the landscaping that I mentioned.

And as it happens on top of the rear of the building on one level, up on the parking is an extensively landscaped courtyard which is made for the residents of the building. So to this approval, we of course, had to meet with neighborhood groups. We had to go through numerous public hearings and we think we reached a place where all parties felt like there was a good compromise with this building.

00;13;49;08 - 00;13;51;14

DP

So was there a historical review.

00;13;51;20 - 00;14;02;26

RC

In this particular neighborhood? Interestingly enough, there was not a historic district review. This piece of Boston, although it has a lot of buildings from long ago, is not a designated landmark district.

00;14;02;28 - 00;14;27;09

DP

Interesting. Yeah, I thought the notion of showing this facade as it peels away as a thick masonry wall, this kind of tongue in cheek reference to historic architecture is really interesting. A great idea. Tell us a little bit about the building and plan. It looks like a giant rectangle, and yet you've done an awful lot with the facade and the undulations in the forms.

00;14;27;11 - 00;16;39;13

RC

That's one simple thing about the building is that the site is a rectangle, which we don't get a lot of those in Boston. So we were excited about that. But the housing portion component is an L-shape because as you know, with multifamily housing, there's a dimension which plays itself out really well. The rectangle of the footprint of the building has to do with the parking.

So the front of that is lined with retail on the building lobby. And then above that is the two lengths of the L-shaped housing. What we did with that then is to articulate those different volumes. That's also where we turn to the brick patterning to identify the different areas of the building. And we had to do this though, within some constraints of course, because this is a rental building and the owners wanted to keep the housing reasonably affordable.

So all of the brick we use is actually just standard modular brick, which means it's the kind of brick that we love because it's easy to lay out. It creates an eight inch by eight inch grid on the building and to be creative with modular brick, we had to do things like turn the brick on its side, create soldier courses and find ways to push the brick inward and outwards to create shadow lines.

And one of the aspects of these fins on the front of the building that we've been talking about is that they actually curve outward from the main facade. But we wanted to achieve this curve without buying any special bricks. And when the contractors did their mock up and brought it out in the sun, everybody to our horror, recognized that it was creating all kinds of jagged shadows because the bricks were rectangular and they were trying to create a curve in order to help them with that.

We actually went back to our drawings. We laid out the coursing of those brick courses and created them some full sized brick causing diagrams, which the Masons then used. They relayed out the mockups and it came out looking smooth. And this was one of those cases where what we love about Brick is it depends so much on the Masons and their desire and skill to make things work.

And that back and forth really, I think made the building much better.

00;16;39;16 - 00;17;04;29

DP

So let's start with the parameters for building materials. When you guys got rolling, did you just decide, Well, Boston's got a lot of bricks, so that's what we're going to use for the majority of the building. And then talk a little bit more about some of these coursing tapes that you use, because I did see some soldier coursing.

I saw some regular type of courses. And then, of course, there are all kinds of strategies to create shadow lines in the facade underneath the windows, etc..

00;17;05;01 - 00;18;17;23

RC

Yeah, the decision to use brick, as you say, dug was a pretty foregone conclusion. We were working in a block where all of the existing buildings, the historic buildings were brick, and it's the kind of material that really helps bring identity to the building in a way that people feel like fits with Boston. This was an idea that sometimes we fight as designers, we think we want to do something new in this city that's all made out of bricks.

But I think over time we've come to recognize that the fact of Brick in Boston is one that's time tested. It's one that brings identity to the place. And so we accepted it fairly quickly and then set out to figure out, well, how do we create different proportions, different forms, and articulate the building with these bricks as well as bring different colors to it.

So it's not all just red brick. We did use a much darker brick for the base of the building, which helps ground the building helps those bays feel like they're floating up above. And then in the courtyard we use some yellow brick, which is not what you see from the street. It gives you some variation for the expression of the building and also brightens up that space.

00;18;17;25 - 00;18;24;20

DP

Could you tell us a little bit more about the coursing types and the strategies to create shadow lines in the facade?

00;18;24;23 - 00;19;10;10

RC

Yes, we were constrained to using just regular shaped bricks. One of the coursing techniques we used was to help with the rhythm of the windows of the building. With housing, you get repetitive windows because we want to use the same kind of windows and we have repetitive apartment units. However, we wanted to create some different scale to those windows, and we use this by creating brick panels which frame some of the windows and help the windows appear to create larger patterns on the facade.

And in these brick patterns, we simply stacked the bricks and then pushed every other brick inward by about an inch, which created this nice textured shadow line, which gave it a little bit of depth similar to the depth the window had. That was one of the techniques we used to help give the building some life.

00;19;10;12 - 00;19;28;08

DP

So it's also interesting you guys ended up doing mock ups, which we all as architects end up seeing in the field an awful lot of times when we're using a lot of masonry or when things get complex. How did you do the drawings? The architectural drawings, were there 3D, was it BIM modeling, was it 2D?

00;19;28;10 - 00;20;38;26

RC

On this project, like many of our projects, we have both a design model and then a construction model. So early on we built the building and sketch up that lets us study forms colors fairly quickly and do variations to help dial in some of the aspects of the building which are going to be most conducive to the design as well as lets us be flexible with some of the city approvals processes when different requirements are brought up around the design development phase, though, we certainly built the same model in Revit and that becomes the actual construction model and Revit is where we really get into the brick detailing.

We don't draw every single brick, although we sometimes like our clients to think we're doing that. We use a combination of patterns on the surface of the model, which are very accurate to the brick module with certain areas where we will go in and manually layout the coursing because we know it needs to work in a certain way.

And so we do love using these tools. They really help us make sure that what we draw is what the Masons are going to be able to build.

00;20;38;28 - 00;21;01;25

DP

Yeah, I was really surprised when I was looking at the photographs, the peeling facade, if you will, these fan like projections. There was one photograph I looked at and you can actually start to see the curve the way the brick is manipulated in the facade. So it's not a hard line. I did not expect that when I saw that photograph.

That must have been really interesting to see worked out in the field.

00;21;01;27 - 00;22;01;22

RC

It was very interesting to see worked out in the field. That curve, however simple it seemed to us, was actually somewhat difficult for the Masons to achieve. They did do a mock up of that curve, which was not successful initially because when they laid out that mock up and put it in the sun, we saw immediately that the corners of the bricks were shadowing over top of each other, that they were struggling to make sure the crossing was smooth.

And so we went back to our drawings and we laid out each course a brick for them and printed a full sized drawing of that, causing to have them give that a try because we use the geometry of the curve to lay out where the corners should fall. Then when the Masons used that template and rebuilt the mockup, it actually came out quite smooth, which is the result you see today.

And we're actually kind of excited because that's a 20 degree change in plain between the face of the building and those projections, and it's achieved in two and a half courses of brick.

00;22;01;25 - 00;22;03;16

DP

My gosh, that's incredible.

00;22;03;19 - 00;22;08;04

RC

Flat bricks too. So we didn't have to buy curved bricks, which nobody likes to do.

00;22;08;06 - 00;22;16;15

DP

Did you do that by making the radius larger for that curve rather than having a smaller radius? Am I understanding that correctly?

00;22;16;17 - 00;22;37;28

RC

It was almost simpler than that. The radius didn't change. It's just which parts of the brick touched the radius needed to be adjusted because the Masons were having the corners and the flats of the bricks that were of course with each other overlapping in a way that cast shadows. And if we just moved those back, the shadows faded away.

00;22;38;04 - 00;22;44;01

DP

Very cool. So how many people were on the team working on the building over time?

00;22;44;03 - 00;23;10;16

RC

From the start of the project, we had just a couple of people. We had our project manager, Jeff Brown, as well as a couple of junior designers helping with the various models and presentations. By the time we got to CDs, there were five of us putting the drawings together and then for construction it was down back to just two of us getting through the various needs of the construction site.

00;23;10;18 - 00;23;14;23

DP

And how long was the process start to finish, including reviews.

00;23;14;25 - 00;23;42;12

RC

These kind of projects, tt's always interesting to answer that question because we've been working on this site with this owner for over ten years. This project was in the queue to it's the biggest one on the site, but it was one of the last ones we did with them. So the early ideas for it were probably seven or eight years ago.

But by the time we started the actual design, that took a little over a year and a half, then the construction took about two and a half years.

00;23;42;14 - 00;23;51;03

DP

So I love to ask architects if there was anything interesting through the design and construction process that you guys learned that was kind of new to you?

00;23;51;05 - 00;24;55;27

RC

Yeah, I think this project probably one of the more interesting and challenging but creative aspects of the project is that this client is their own developer and their own contractor. They are the ones who both financed the building and built the building, but they did hire us to design the building and of course hired the subcontractors to build the building with them.

But there were many times when you're working with a client who is building their own buildings that they are in a hurry because they figured they know what they're doing and they want to move forward and so very often we would find ourselves kind of rushing to stay, keep up with them. And what I think was an important lesson for us or something we were glad about is that we did take the time to do a really strong set of drawings during the design phase so that every time the client tried to get ahead of us, we had a good set of documents to help them not get into trouble.

That's not always the case. Sometimes clients will hurry you through the design with the thought that during construction you can figure out some more of the details.

00;24;56;00 - 00;25;00;24

DP

So the project wasn't bid out then to a contractor or it was?

00;25;00;27 - 00;25;11;02

RC

The project was not bid out to a general contractor because the general contractor was the client. However, they did bid out all of the different trades, including the masonry trades.

00;25;11;04 - 00;25;15;01

DP

So it was an extraordinarily thorough set by the time you guys were done.

00;25;15;08 - 00;25;19;17

RC

We did have a very strong set of drawings which always makes us happy and protects us.

00;25;19;19 - 00;25;32;24

DP

Makes things a little easier down the road. So, Rob, you've been an architect for a while. Based on what you know today about being an architect, do you have any words of advice for your younger self or even young architects coming down the pike?

00;25;32;27 - 00;25;56;13

RC

Sure. I think one of the pieces of advice I have learned over the career is it really matters to trust in the simplicity of design and to keep things basic. You may think, as I did as a young designer, that you need to add a lot of ideas and things like Brick are boring. But actually if you just stick with the basics, you can come up with quite an elegant solution.

00;25;56;15 - 00;26;33;06

DP

Yeah, I always find that interesting, this idea that when you have limitations or parameters, many times young people think, Well, I'm not going to be able to do anything creative inside of this notion that things should be simple or minimal in some way. And yet I think that is the key to creating things that have never been done before.

Perhaps I love this idea that when I'm given lots of restrictions, I still have to be, I still want to be creative. So I think that ties a little bit into what you just said.

00;26;33;09 - 00;26;54;11

RC

I completely agree. I think something else we find about trying to stick with the basics is very often when you're trying to tell a story and come up with a concept which other people can understand, you really have to stick to the story and stick to the basics. And so these rules were made for a reason and they're really great to flex and learn from.

00;26;54;14 - 00;27;03;24

DP

Well, Rob, thank you very much for being with us today. And thanks for your time. Where can people go to learn more about Hacin Architecture and Design and yourself?

00;27;03;26 - 00;27;21;20

RC

Thank you, Doug. It's been a great pleasure to be here today. And you can go to www.Hacin.com to learn about us or come to Boston's South End. And we're always happy to give people a tour of both our projects and a lot of the great historic architecture in Boston.

00;27;21;22 - 00;27;27;28

DP

Well, thanks again, Rob. Beautiful project. Congratulations. And we'll see you around Boston.

00;27;28;01 - 00;27;31;10

RC

Thank you, Doug.

TRANSCRIPT

00;00;00;02 - 00;00;05;10

Doug Pat (DP)

Let's go inside the vault. The design vault.

00;00;05;12 - 00;00;31;14

Vincente Quiroga (VQ)

We actually decided early on that we would adopt the one story podium and also set back sooner than we actually needed to. It increases the lighting there allows for breezes that blow through. It also allows for multiple outdoor terracing to happen. So those units that aren't particularly high and don't have the same views can step out onto your terrace and see the water.

And so really maximizes the value and effectiveness and the quality of those spaces.

00;00;31;16 - 00;01;05;23

DP

This is my guest, Vicente Quiroga. I'll share more about him shortly. In this episode from the Design Vault we highlight, Vicente’s project 29 Huron in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. The Huron is a mixed use multifamily 13 story 266,000 square foot building with ground floor retail and high end amenities. In order to account for the narrow site geometry and flood zone, multiple massing schemes were studied with an objective to maximize height and floor area distribution and prioritize views.

The building is defined by 2 13 story towers connected by a shared lobby whose step forms narrow on the higher floors. The two tower massing maximizes unobstructed views across the East River, taking advantage of its exceptional waterfront location. Due to the building's location in a flood zone, Morris Adjmi coordinated closely with consultants to provide active flood protection solutions such as deployable flood barriers, temporary stairs, flood vents and flood resistant glazing at storefronts. Located within the building's podium, many of the Huron's amenity spaces fall within the design flood elevation, including the indoor pool. Flood resistant glazing within these spaces maintains transparency. The building's glass and steel towers reflect Greenpoint's industrial heritage, while the rough brick podium is inspired by the materials and scale of surrounding warehouses. The heavily gridded facade is comprised of a window wall system featuring I-beam profiles on the pillars.

Hi, I'm Doug Pat and this is Design Vault. Vicente is a registered architect and project manager at Morris Adjmi Architects in New York City. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in Architecture from New York University and a master of architecture from the City College of New York. He has a diverse portfolio encompassing various building types, such as historic renovations, interiors, hotels, art exhibition spaces, educational facilities and high end residential buildings in the Northeast, the United Kingdom and Spain.

Vicente also has a broad and unique understanding of New York City's building codes and requirements related to waterfront development and building within flood zones. He's currently managing the Construction Administration of 1 Huron on a 266,000 square foot multifamily building along the East River in Brooklyn's Greenpoint neighborhood. Prior to joining Maurice and me, Vicente worked on public restoration projects for the New York City School Construction Authority and the New York City Department of Design and Construction.

So welcome, Vincente. It's nice to have you with us today. Now, for those of you listening who have not heard our interview with Michelle Wagner from Morris Adjmi during the first season. Vicente, could you tell us a little bit about the firm? So where are you guys located? What's the size of the firm? How long has it been around and what kind of work do you do?

00;03;38;11 - 00;04;12;25

VQ

We're based in New York City, near the financial district and Wall Street. We also have a New Orleans office as well, because Morris is originally from there. So we have a broad practice, decades of experience, really working first in New York, and particularly in landmark districts and contexts as well as broadening that to sort of a national practice and also very holistic practice involving urban design, placemaking architecture, interiors, furniture and art services.

The New York office is approximately 70 people, and I think we have about 10 to 20 people in the office as well.

00;04;12;27 - 00;04;18;07

DP

So how long have you been with Morris Adjmi? How long have you been a registered architect and what do you do there?

00;04;18;10 - 00;04;58;00

VQ

So I've worked for about six years there and I've been a registered architect for 12 to 13 years in practice. Prior to that, over 15 years of experience since graduate school. So my role is project manager and flex project architect position, just really responsible for anything and everything to do with the project from client management, coordination, staffing, everything, being accountable for the project throughout the life of it.

And this one in particular has been special because, you know, in a large practice you often inherit projects or people come and go. This project for me has been involved since day zero through completion, so it's very special to me.

00;04;58;07 - 00;04;59;16

DP

And how long has it been?

00;04;59;19 - 00;05;10;24

VQ

Started in 2018, so, you know, approximately five or six years. Some of that was due to the pandemic. There is some slow down pausing during that time where it would have sort of completed a little bit faster.

00;05;10;27 - 00;05;18;03

DP

So most architects at Morris Adjmi are with one project the entire way through and are working on other jobs at the same time.

00;05;18;09 - 00;05;31;02

VQ

Everyone's multitasking. I myself have about six projects actively in different stages of a construction administration or schematic and design development as well. We like to flex our brain.

00;05;31;05 - 00;05;33;02

DP

And how do you like being a project manager?

00;05;33;09 - 00;06;04;25

VQ

It's good. It's a very challenging role because you're juggling practical logistics as schedule and staffing and the finances, but you're also deeply involved with building the client relationship and trust and working with the team to get to the milestones of the project and deliver what you're trying to do, but also take a higher view and really emphasize what are we trying to do here?

What is the objective from a practical standpoint to meet their needs of the project, But also what is the design move? What's the inspiration? What are we trying to do and maintain that throughout the life of the project, which isn't easy?

00;06;04;27 - 00;06;08;14

DP

No, it's not. And how big is the team for the Huron Project?

00;06;08;21 - 00;06;41;06

VQ

It's ebbed and flowed. At some points you have ten people during extensive documentation process. During CA, I think we have about five people. It's particularly because it has extensive interiors. We've staffed sort of an architecture team as well as an interiors team, and then they also have taken on the furnishings and art for the project. So we have over 30,000 square feet of interior amenity with pools and meeting rooms and kids rooms, as well as some outdoor activities where we also collaborated with the landscape architects. So there's a lot of things going on.

00;06;41;09 - 00;06;43;06

DP

And how did your office get the job?

00;06;43;08 - 00;06;59;03

VQ

Well, we were selected from a RFP process with the client. They had tried to develop it into a different solutions in the past and weren't very happy with those studies. So they approached us in a feasibility concept phase to sort of see what they could do as of. Right.

00;06;59;06 - 00;07;00;27

DP

And did you guys know the clients?

00;07;01;00 - 00;07;27;12

VQ

We knew them. It's really our first project with them. We've heard of them before. The client is interesting in that they have a range of experiences of multifamily and hospitality projects in their portfolio and they're also client. That's up for a challenge. You know, the site dimensionally was challenged, the site conditions in terms of remediation of the industrial sites and also its waterfront access, those are all challenges to the design that they were up for.

00;07;27;14 - 00;07;33;25

DP

So tell us a little bit about the history of the location of the site. What was going on there before you guys got there?

00;07;33;28 - 00;08;39;17

VQ

The history of the site, you know, it's a long, narrow site. Our building massing is 100 feet in the north south direction. It's over 500 feet in the east west direction. So it's very distended and lengthened and narrowed. The original site was a one story warehouse, which was kind of the context of the neighborhood. I lived in that neighborhood many years ago, and that was the context.

The context is changing primarily because in a sort of Bloomberg era, there was a zoning plan, but then the 2008 crisis stalled those plans, and it took a while for that increased zoning and development to come to fruition. And so we were part of that increased zoning for the site. In terms of the massing, we wanted to take a sense of the character that was there and honor that.

Not all the projects that we see built really take that into account. And we were thinking, what is the context now and what was the context in the past? So we really thought about selecting a one story podium and selecting Brick as the foundation for that, and also being practical about the openings and where they're located.

00;08;39;20 - 00;08;45;24

DP

Right. So that's a good segue to my next question. So what was the scope and the programmatic requirements for the project?

00;08;45;27 - 00;09;00;14

VQ

For a residential project to build as of right and the emphasis for the target population would be families. So large units, lots of two bedroom and three bedroom units, a lot of outdoor access and the views because of its waterfront proximity.

00;09;00;17 - 00;09;25;13

DP

Yeah, the site is unbelievable. And you guys really take advantage of just about everything out there. It's a great project. So let's talk about the design. So first let's talk about the building stylistically. So to me it looks a lot like a very contemporary warehouse space, right? So there's lots of glass. It almost appears lantern like in the photos that I saw at dusk. It's beautiful.

00;09;25;16 - 00;09;53;28

VQ

The choice of materials was very specific. The neighborhood has a unique grid orientation to the world, and so it captures the light in the sunrise and sunset, in particular. The brick we chose to be a rough, molded brick with a dark mortar and the metal panel has a mica flake to it that captures the light and changes throughout the day.

So sometimes it looks orange and copper. Sometimes it actually looks bronze toned and it has a chocolate sienna undertones to it.

00;09;53;28 - 00;10;05;23

DP

I noticed that in the photographs that the metal definitely takes on a bunch of different colors. So let's back up a little bit. Let's talk about the project restrictions, zoning, any historical requirements for you guys?

00;10;05;26 - 00;10;56;16

VQ

So the site isn't within a landmark district, but as our office really emphasizes context in our practice. So even when there's not those kind of historical restrictions, we like to start there and say, what does it want to be? And so we actually decided early on that we would adopt the one story podium and also set back sooner than we actually needed to.

First, to take a cue from that one story warehouse context, but also how that kind of massing relates to the street and the experience of the street. It increases the light and air and allows for breezes to blow through. It also allows for multiple outdoor terracing to happen. So those units that aren't particularly high and don't have the same views can step out onto your terrace and see the water.

And so really maximizes the value and effectiveness and the quality of those spaces.

00;10;56;19 - 00;11;05;22

DP

So let's talk a little bit about the building and plans. I'm assuming it's along because the lots a  long rectangle, the building matches that although it steps back.

00;11;05;24 - 00;11;47;08

VQ

It steps back immediately after the first story. The first story is about 17 feet in height. And so there are some very high ceiling experiences there, ranging from 12 to 14 foot ceilings within the amenities alone. And that also gave us the room to deal with some of the flood constraints as well. Being that the site is adjacent to the East River the predicted flood zones right now are anywhere from 5 to 6 feet above grade. So that was a challenge and a constraint early on where we had to coordinate. We certainly decided we weren't going to excavate because of the high water table. So some of the functions that you would put in the cellar, we put a grade, but we often had to elevate the critical services six feet above where you normally would place them.

00;11;47;10 - 00;11;54;05

DP

So I'm curious, when you're digging that close to the water, do you get a lot of water, a lot of groundwater coming in when you're creating your foundations?

00;11;54;05 - 00;12;22;21

VQ

Yes, you do. Yes. Early on there was a lot of pile driving very deep anywhere from I would say 30 or 40 feet down. And those piles were linked up with large caps, pile caps and then mat foundations at the towers. The slab itself, because of, you know, you have to think more like a boat or a bathtub.

The slab itself was anywhere from 24 inches to 18 inches thick at various points throughout it. And it has to resist uplift.

00;12;22;23 - 00;12;28;07

DP

That's really interesting. So when you're driving piles and there's a lot of bedrock, how do you do that?

00;12;28;10 - 00;12;47;14

VQ

The nature of the historic waterfront is often landfill, so a lot of it is just trash or sediment over 200 years people just dump things in the river and it created a new shoreline, which was often the case, as you see in lower Manhattan as well. So we knew that we were going to have to go deep to hit rock.

00;12;47;20 - 00;12;50;29

DP

So you're driving the piles then 25 or 30 feet.

00;12;50;29 - 00;12;51;18

VQ

Exactly.

00;12;51;18 - 00;12;52;09

DP

I got it.

00;12;52;09 - 00;13;48;10

VQ

Yeah. And another challenge relating to the waterfront edge is we had to deal with actually coordinate with a marine architect because the edge condition was failing and we needed to remediate it. So we coordinated a new driving a new sheet edge along the shore to create that. The site actually is interesting in that it has a natural cove condition that other areas along the waterfront don't.

And so we recreated that in the remediation. But we also worked with the landscape architect to create this. We're obligated by zoning that create a setback for public access on the site. So they really leaned into that curved cove condition that's set back and stepped it down to the water gradually from grade and incorporated eco concrete blocks that have various pockets that allow kind of tide pool action to happen.

And so we thought about breaking down the shoreline a little bit and not just a hard edge.

00;13;48;12 - 00;13;57;21

DP

It sounds really interesting. I mean, when somebody owns a piece of property like that and it's really sitting on debris, in many cases, it's kind of unusual.

00;13;57;24 - 00;14;34;06

VQ

I mean, we tried to find opportunities to maximize the value of the site. With the two tower strategy. We put lots of valuable floor area up high and took advantage of the views. We made double the amount of corner units that you could have by having a two towers. We also separated them over 100 feet apart so that the West Tower really gets out there in front of other buildings that it's alongside.

The East Tower is set back for the east to kind of get around other buildings that could obscure it. And we were actually surprised at how good the views are as it was being built. We knew it was going to be good, but it actually turned out to be better than we anticipated.

00;14;34;09 - 00;14;41;08

DP

It's really beautiful about the design as the corners are opened up then to become porches, right? Terraces, is that correct?

00;14;41;10 - 00;15;04;06

VQ

That's right. This is part of that is a response to some zoning constraints is at a certain height you also had to step back in multiple directions. And one of the things that we like to do is incorporate our balconies into the building facade and not just look like appendages. So we really took advantage of that setback rule and created these covered protected balconies.

Also, it's quite windy, so that coverage helps screen it a little bit.

00;15;04;08 - 00;15;08;14

DP

So an open terrace meets the setback requirements then?

00;15;08;21 - 00;15;09;04

VQ

Yes.

00;15;09;07 - 00;15;13;25

DP

Wow, that's really interesting. So did you guys max out the building height then?

00;15;14;01 - 00;15;36;14

VQ

Yes, we had a R six zoning. We were adjacent to R eight. So there's some taller buildings in the surrounding area. But we did try to sort of maximize it. Part of also with the flood zoning, when you have extreme water table situation, you are allowed to increase up to a certain height. So we were able to utilize the various zoning restrictions to our benefit.

00;15;36;17 - 00;15;39;19

DP

So how long did the building review take with the city?

00;15;39;26 - 00;15;57;14

VQ

Well, certainly just even the public park portion we started in 2008. It probably took a year and a half to two years alone. At the same time, we were overlapping with our design and documentation, so it probably took another two years to really finish all the documentation.

00;15;57;17 - 00;16;09;00

DP

So let's talk a little bit more about the parameters for the building materials and the use of masonry, which from what I can tell from the photos is at the base and then the circulation tower, is that correct?

00;16;09;02 - 00;17;40;06

VQ

The circulation towers are actually stucco with a color to match the metal panel facade. They were really thought of as almost like a concrete massing for the podium. We selected a Glen-Gery Brick that was a molded modular brick. It has orange undertones and some brown tones as well along its finish, and it's a bit city, and we specifically selected it for its character.

It has texture, it catches the light in an interesting way. It's a very practical brick. And so we tried to think about just in the same way that we thought about the rest of the massing and even some of the interior design elements is to marry a practical industrial esthetic that was indigenous to the neighborhood, but also elevated and make it a bit of a luxurious esthetic as well as a hybrid.

So we selected the brick, we selected a dark mortar and did simple moves with the design in terms of let the program and the adjacencies define where those openings wanted to be, because again, 500 feet, we weren't over doing the modulation of that. We really wanted it to say this is where the windows want to be based off of the function of the plan.

And when we knew where those openings would be, we also decided upon simple detailing, corbelling of 1 to 2 inches stack stretcher, bond patterns, soldier brick patterns, which would have been indicative of the kind of twenties, thirties or earlier warehouse context. You know, again, just trying to tie it back to what would have been if it had been built 100 years ago.

00;17;40;08 - 00;17;50;25

DP

Well, I noticed there's a really pretty detail where you're setting the masonry back from the facade to create a reveal for the headers and for some of these openings.

00;17;50;28 - 00;18;03;17

VQ

Yes. And it creates a lot of interplay of light and shadow along the facade. And that was always thought about, you know, how do you deal with such a long facade that would have a lot of opacity to it, but create interest in that opacity.

00;18;03;19 - 00;18;05;17

DP

So did you guys draw the building in BIM?

00;18;05;17 - 00;18;06;17

VQ

Yes.

00;18;06;24 - 00;18;07;29

DP

You guys work in Revit?

00;18;08;04 - 00;18;10;12

VQ

Yeah, we're predominantly a Revit office.

00;18;10;14 - 00;18;19;08

DP

So the studies that you did initially, did you guys draw the whole building in 3D and then show the clients and so they got to see the model? Or did you guys build a physical model too?

00;18;19;10 - 00;18;43;16

VQ

We always start with the Revit process because it has its advantages, sort of quick moves and early viewing studies as well as planning. We did some early models, for the sales we did a full scale model of the whole building as well as the interiors. There's actually a drawer that pulls out of the base of the model and you can see all of the amenities articulated, which is incredible.

00;18;43;18 - 00;18;51;25

DP

Again, I'm curious how large of a set does a project like this create? How many pages just for architecturals?

00;18;51;27 - 00;19;11;26

VQ

That was always a challenge for the documentation was the East West Towers had their own articulations. Between the architectural division and the supporting engineering divisions, we had four volumes of documents just on drawings alone, and I want to say the architectural volume was easily 100 sheets or more unto itself.

00;19;11;28 - 00;19;24;27

DP

Another detail I really like is the exterior facade. So you made the piers and to some extent the floor slabs as they’re exposed on the exterior. It's not really a slab, it looks like steel. It's a really pretty detail.

00;19;24;29 - 00;19;50;24

VQ

Yeah, it's a simple C channel profile that's in ACM, Aluminum Composite Metal panel, and it's an open range screen. We really worked with our facade consultants and structural to simplify the detail as much as possible and maximize the windows. You know, again, this project, by its site positioning and daylighting it wants big windows. So we wanted to coordinate that with slab covers and the column covers.

00;19;50;26 - 00;20;01;15

DP

So could you give me more of an idea of how that open rain screen works? I mean, when I'm looking at the exterior photographs does not look like a rain screen at all. I mean, it looks like an enclosed system.

00;20;01;17 - 00;20;35;18

VQ

The profile clips the slab edge and tacked on to a fin that is part of the window wall extrusion. And that sort of stabilizes the top and bottom relationship and sets the datum for every floor and at every joints we leave it open behind that paneled system is a mineral wall assembly and waterproofing behind that and at the open joints, we coordinated with the shops to return the finish and bend, partly to stiffen the profile, but also finish it off and create a sense of closure.

00;20;35;20 - 00;20;40;20

DP

And what would be the advantage of doing a rain screen versus doing a closed system there?

00;20;40;22 - 00;20;56;05

VQ

It was more practical from an installation and sequencing standpoint and also just maintenance, you know, tall buildings, having to deal with caulking and repairing it later. It's a challenge and you have to think about that for clients’ maintenance. You know, it's a real concern.

00;20;56;07 - 00;21;32;06

DP

Yeah. I'm just getting myself familiar with rain screens. I'm behind residential work and we did a rain screen for my most recent home in New York State and was a real education. It's such an interesting system and I would say I think I tested on it for some CE units that I took maybe a couple of years ago and I thought, Wow, this is a really interesting idea where the facade is actually wide open in some ways and water's allowed just kind of move through it, dry back out again.

You're eliminating a lot of challenges long term by using rain screens.

00;21;32;08 - 00;22;01;14

VQ

I actually have an extensive experience from my school construction authority days of working on rain screens that we often would take existing schools that are 100 year old buildings that were solid wall assemblies, and we found water infiltration. We would take back the finish to the back up and create narrow cavity drainage plains with brick or precast or GFRC elements.

It's definitely in my wheelhouse to work in that context.

00;22;01;17 - 00;22;19;29

DP

It makes perfect sense to allow a wall to dry out rather than capture water behind the facades. All right. But it took us hundreds of years to figure this out. Very interesting. So you guys drew the building in BIM. You have the 3D model. How long have you guys been working in Revit?

00;22;20;01 - 00;22;22;00

VQ

15 to 20 years at least.

00;22;22;03 - 00;22;34;21

DP

Again, I'm kind of curious as an offshoot to this discussion. When you hire people, do you hire people who do not know how to use Revit? Maybe they've used Micro Station or they use ArchiCAD or AutoCAD and then you train them.

00;22;34;28 - 00;23;20;13

VQ

It's ever more common for them to have experiences these days. I actually didn't know Revit when I started, and that was a learning experience for me. You know, it has its pros and cons, you know, if you're an old school CAD person, but I value its ability to, you know, you move a wall, it moves everywhere. You don't have to constantly track that element.

And also when we're doing design options for large complicated projects, thinking about, well, what if the window appears or this dimension or that dimension, we can iterate and quickly deploy changes, you know, especially this day and age where you're dealing with value engineering, they come back with bids, you say, it's got to come out of somewhere. It's an important tool to be able to pivot and retool the design, adapt the design to accommodate these requirements.

00;23;20;15 - 00;24;10;27

DP

It's a really good point for those of you who don't know what BIM is, it's building information modeling, so you're giving lots of information up front to building parts like walls and plan, for example. And initially, at least in my experience, it takes a lot longer to draw something in the beginning, but you've got all that information in there.

So Vicente is explaining that what happens is when you need to make a change, the change is really quick because you're just changing one thing out of a series of pieces of information that you've already kind of filled in. So BIM has really changed the business over the last 15, 20 years. So do you guys learn anything interesting through the design and construction process? Maybe something you'd never dealt with before in terms of details or dealing with the client or the?

00;24;10;27 - 00;25;39;01

VQ

GC Well, certainly that flood design is evolving. We came up with some strategies that even the rules have changed since we started this project. So it's constantly evolving target and some of the forecasted flood elevations have changed across time. So that's something that's an ever evolving discipline of knowledge and thinking about active systems versus passive systems. You know, this building relies on a mixture of passive and active systems, some that the building is set up or either elevated spaces or the wall assemblies set up to resist water, the force of water in other elements, it's relying on staff.

We're trained to deploy solutions that are either barriers or stairs to reduce that access throughout the building. And that's a big challenge with any project that's in a flood zone is egress, space planning services and also mitigating cost. The developer and the clients and the residents ultimately will want to experience these views. But those views are difficult if we're anticipating flooding.

Nobody wants to have windows that are six feet off the ground. We were selective in where we put our efforts and said these areas are going to have the views. We're going to coordinate flood resistant glazing there. The same thought process at the commercial retail and lobby. You know, the places that it mattered. We wanted to maximize the glass. In other areas, we dialed it back down to really use opaque assemblies to articulate the design.

00;25;39;04 - 00;25;42;16

DP

So I mentioned deployable flood barriers. What is that?

00;25;42;18 - 00;26;21;26

VQ

I think of them like Lincoln Logs. Well, there's a range of options out there, but they are often aluminum extrusions that gasket together and stack along channels and they'll go to whatever height that is necessary. They often have back bracing or steel or aluminum sections. Those elements either are built into the facade already or tie back into anchor points that really transfer the loads to the structure.

It's a very complicated interaction and coordination of the design that you want these facade protection elements, the superstructure and waterproofing, you know, it all has to work and it takes a lot of effort.

00;26;21;28 - 00;26;25;28

DP

So what happens to that barrier when there is a flood? Do they break away?

00;26;26;00 - 00;26;27;17

VQ

They resist. They act as a wall.

00;26;27;17 - 00;26;28;21

DP

Resist. Okay. Yeah.

00;26;28;22 - 00;26;39;05

VQ

Normally they're stored in a closet until they're needed. The idea is if you have notice of an impending storm or hurricane, then you would deploy them in advance of the storm.

00;26;39;05 - 00;27;06;01

DP

Thus deployable. Yeah. Interesting. So Vicente, you're a relatively young architect. I say that because at one time I was a young architect and I used to tell my students that you were considered young at 40 or 50. I'm now 55, so please don't be offended by my comment. But based on what you know so far, do you have any words of advice for your younger self or even young architects like yourself just getting started, Not just getting started, but getting started.

00;27;06;08 - 00;27;41;19

VQ

I think curiosity and a willingness to learn a variety of things. Architecture is an interesting creative discipline because there's a lot of rigor and science and technology and law backed up into that knowledge. But it's also trying to solve a problem. You have to really embrace the learning curve of that and learning things that you may not have mastery of, but your organizing, those various constraints and knowledge is into a solution.

And I think that's, if you're enthusiastic and go with it and embrace it, I think you get a lot out of it.

00;27;41;22 - 00;27;57;05

DP

Yeah, I totally agree. I like to tell people architecture is a field where you have to know a lot about a lot. It's as simple as that. So, Vicente, it's been great to speak with you today. Thanks for your time. Where can people go to learn more about Morris Adjmi Architects and yourself?

00;27;57;11 - 00;28;05;26

VQ

You can go to MA.com, our website. You can also check out The Huron Instagram. You can also visit the site. It's a beautiful building.

00;28;06;02 - 00;28;08;18

DP

Yeah, it's a great project. Well, thank you very much, Vicente.

00;28;08;22 - 00;28;12;23

VQ

Thank you.

TRANSCRIPT

00;00;00;03 - 00;00;05;13

Doug Pat (DP)

Let's go inside the vault. The design vault.

00;00;05;16 - 00;00;44;27

Kent Suhrbier (KS)

The one thing that then really influenced the design of the building was meeting a kind of very wide floor plate that could accommodate sort of larger laboratory spaces in addition to lots of perimeter office and workspaces. And so this is an asymmetrical core where we pull everything to one side. We then also cut a big connective series of stairs and interlocking spaces through the center of the building that also gave us some ability to have a relationship between the all the tenants within the building so that they can see each other, experience what's going on with each other, but not be in each other's business.

00;00;44;29 - 00;03;45;00

DP

This is my guest, Kent Suhrbier. I'll share more about him shortly. In this episode from the Design Vault, we highlight Kent's project, TCS Hall at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Carnegie Mellon University built TCS Hall, which is a new academic building on Forbes Avenue at the western edge of its campus. The project aimed to allow for future expansion and create connections between the campus and the nearby community.

It was designed to accommodate both private and university users, providing flexible spaces for collaboration while respecting the need for privacy. The finished project, an 88,000 square foot LEED gold certified facility, was done in collaboration with Tata Consultancy Services. The building houses the Institute for Software Research, the Master of Science in Computational Finance Program, the Center for Business Engagement and the TCS Think Tank, all of which promote academic research, innovation and professional development.

The partnered brickwork drew inspiration from the original Horn Postle campus architecture, reflecting the economic significance of brick as a building material in Pittsburgh. This was combined with terracotta and glass to create a balanced, contemporary aesthetic. Various colors and coursing a brick appear across the elevations, such as running bond, stacked and soldier. The brick walls subtly undulate as they mix with flat, dark window bars that dance across the facade.

A cost effective approach was taken to create the rhythmic facade pattern using the logic of binary base code to develop the esthetic modules. Hi, I'm Doug Pat and this is Design Vault. Kent Suhrbier holds a Bachelor of Architecture from Carnegie Mellon University and is a fellow of the AIA. He's also a principal at Bohlin Cywinski Jackson’s Pittsburgh studio.

His work for them includes civic facilities, museums, centers for engineering and innovation, corporate headquarters and university laboratories. The core theme of his diverse experience is his commitment to crafting spaces that define new paradigms, as has been the case on projects like the Frick Environmental Center and Carnegie Mellon Universities ANSYS and TCS halls. His approach to design values, evocative spaces that maintain a thoughtful sensitivity to the natural environment and the communities they serve.

Kent has spent many years teaching the practice of architecture and is deeply committed to mentoring and nurturing the next generation of designers. He's currently an adjunct professor at Carnegie Mellon University. So welcome, Kent. It's nice to have you with us today. So tell us a little bit about balance, a Bohlin Cywinski Jackson studio.

00;03;45;02 - 00;04;30;09

KS

That's a pleasure, Doug. So we're a national practice with studios across the country. Our Pittsburgh studio has been here for little more than 45 years, and it's always been located in the center of downtown Pittsburgh. And similar to kind of all of our groups, works on a blend of typologies in terms of buildings. So we do everything from residential to multifamily.

But at the core of a lot of our work is our university buildings and university projects. And we've been fortunate in the Pittsburgh region to have a very long relationship with Carnegie Mellon that goes back to originally the software engineering Institute and then the Intelligent workplace. And then in more recent years, working on the work with ANSYS Hall and now TCS Hall.

00;04;30;16 - 00;04;36;22

DP

And this is a big firm. So you guys have studios across the United States. Where are they and what's the overall size of the business?

00;04;36;24 - 00;05;04;05

KS

We're not that large. We are about 100 people and we're located in studios in Seattle, San Francisco, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, and Wilkes-Barre. We started in Pennsylvania. We still have a strong presence in Pennsylvania, but we also, over the years, have created quite a strong studio in Seattle. All the studios develop really about this idea of craft. And so each one kind of has settled in that nature in their place.

00;05;04;07 - 00;05;07;11

DP

So you've been an architect for some time over 30 years, right?

00;05;07;14 - 00;05;09;06

KS

Yes.

00;05;09;08 - 00;05;15;08

DP

Time flies. So tell us a little bit about your experience as an architect. Have you always worked for BCJ?

00;05;15;11 - 00;05;29;06

KS

I worked for BCJ early in my career and then went and had my own practice for a number of years while I was teaching and then had an opportunity to come back to BCJ in the Pittsburgh studio about ten years ago. And we've been at it ever since.

00;05;29;08 - 00;05;32;09

DP

And have you taught anywhere other than Carnegie Mellon?

00;05;32;12 - 00;05;37;18

KS

No. Lots of critiques and reviews, but most of my teaching has been based at CMU.

00;05;37;21 - 00;05;43;01

DP

So let's dig in here and talk about the project. So how did your office get the project?

00;05;43;03 - 00;06;30;02

KS

We were working currently with the university on ANSYS Hall. The university had gone down a path with a slightly different project. It was not working for the combination of the university and the private partner, and so they had decided to actually stop that project and take a different direction. And that's when we were brought in, which was a fantastic opportunity, but also meant that we were in the position of having to work very quickly because this was a project where once you change direction, everybody wants to hold the schedule, hold the original parameters for the work and the project.

And so that put some additional pressures on the work. But at the same time, I think really brought the team together to focus in a way that was actually really advantageous.

00;06;30;04 - 00;06;46;26

DP

That's interesting. One of the most important things we do as architects is manage the client's expectations, right? So you get that project and then you've got to say, Well, we're going to move very quickly as quickly as we can, but we're going to end up spending a little bit more time than you might think getting rolling here.

00;06;46;29 - 00;07;23;09

KS

Yeah, and there was certainly that in the planning and what I think it meant is some of the things happened in parallel. More things were probably run in parallel than you might do on a traditional project and process, which I think actually then allowed us a little bit of freedom to do some experimentation with the materials. We had a very good construction management partner who was on board at the same time we were, which on a project like this where you're moving quickly and you have a fixed budget is essential because every decision has to be made in the context of design, budget and schedule.

00;07;23;11 - 00;07;26;21

DP

So could you give us a little history of the location?

00;07;26;24 - 00;09;03;18

KS

Sure. The location of this, it really drove and I think opened this the opportunity for this project to kind of have the character that it does. As you stated, it draws on the traditional Horn Postle tan & buff brick that defines most of Carnegie Mellon's campus and its original. It's a campus that was developed around 1905 that was a design competition, essentially in a traditional Beaux Arts style.

And then it's evolved with a whole series of much more contemporary buildings throughout the 100 and some years since then. And this specific building is on a brownfield site. Pittsburgh is defined also by these very deep ravines. We have a very deep topography to the city. And so the site for this project is actually on the other edge of the ravine from the main campus.

It's sort of the first building of a new quadrant that is actually at the fringe, kind of between the edge of Carnegie Mellon and the University of Pittsburgh. They share a boundary between each other along this kind of eastern edge of Carnegie Mellon. And so what that meant is we could use the material to tie it to the campus.

But in terms of stylistic, but there was also this drive from both the university and from the private partner with TCS keys to make this something very nontraditional. So this was a task of how to use brick in ways that are not historic or traditional in any way. So leverage the material, but not necessarily alter the details.

00;09;03;20 - 00;09;06;15

DP

So the client knew this was going to be a contemporary building.

00;09;06;22 - 00;09;10;16

KS

They did. I think we were fortunate in that they were insistent.

00;09;10;18 - 00;09;19;01

DP

Well, they chose your firm. It makes perfect sense. So what was the scope and programmatic requirements for the project?

00;09;19;03 - 00;10;45;10

KS

So in your intro, I think you hit most of the stakeholders and there's even a couple more since then because there were some spaces that weren't even fit out when we were doing the building, but it needed to be a very kind of flexible, open floor play. The one thing that then really influenced the design of the building was meeting a kind of very wide floor plate that could accommodate sort of larger laboratory spaces, research spaces in addition to lots of perimeter office and workspaces. And so we did two things to make that happen. We pulled all the core services for the building kind of to the west of the site instead of locating kind of building core in the middle of the floor, played in a traditional developer building. This is an asymmetrical core where we pull everything to one side and free up the floor plate.

We then also cut a big connective series of stairs and interlocking spaces through the center of the building that bring daylight into the center of the building and kind of create a heart between all these various tenants that also gave us some ability to have a relationship between the all the tenants within the building so that they could see each other, experience what's going on with each other, but not be in each other's business.

Because this is a building where you have different research groups, lots of intellectual property that needs to be kept safe between both public and academic groups. And so lots of visual transparency with controlled boundaries.

00;10;45;13 - 00;10;49;09

DP

So the building plan, so the site, is it rectangular?

00;10;49;16 - 00;11;31;13

KS

The site was a much larger quadrant where we master planned for both this building as a sort of phase one that's 88 or 90,000 square foot sort of phase one. And then there's an idea of a connective plaza and paseo that would connect north south through the site. And then there's a Phase two project that was developed kind of through a schematic level that's about 190,000 square feet that's adjacent to it.

You know, it needed to be a very efficient plan. So it starts as a rectangle and then it begins to inflect and kind of reflect some of the views on the site in terms of beginning to bend and open to some of the view corridors and solar orientation that's on site.

00;11;31;16 - 00;11;40;23

DP

Right? So at least in the lower plan, if I recall the plans correctly, there's almost like a diagonal which is cut into that first floor plan. Is that correct?

00;11;40;25 - 00;12;00;14

KS

Correct, yeah. So we started off in with a simple plan. The way we would describe it is we almost want the kind of site forces the views, the kind of the way you move around the site to then begin to push and pull on something that starts very simple, but then can have some more complex geometry to it as it gets pushed and pulled.

00;12;00;16 - 00;12;11;09

DP

So that brings us to project restrictions. So what was the zoning like on this site? Were there any restrictions in terms of the height or the shape of the project? Setbacks?

00;12;11;12 - 00;13;07;01

KS

Yeah. I mean, I don't know any of us have found that magical site where there aren't those we'll all look forward to when we find it.

The site. Had a few issues and that it was a brownfield site. It was a former gas station site. So you can imagine the fun that brings to some of the initial site work. But that also gave us some opportunities to kind of take some parking in underneath the building once we had to kind of over excavate and clear out part of the site.

It's right on the side of the ravine. So from a planning standpoint, we could push the building kind of right up to the tree line and right against the side of a very steep hill that did take some really good coordination with the construction manager. And this is a group, Mascaro, who is regional here but does really a fantastic job and was willing to kind of cooperate on figuring out how then to stage essentially all the facade work while hanging off the side of a hill.

00;13;07;03 - 00;13;10;09

DP

So how long did building review take with the city?

00;13;10;14 - 00;14;12;25

KS

So this one was fairly to finish our zoning question, they're both related. The zoning restrictions on the site are more comprehensive as part of a kind of institutional master plan. This is one of the benefits of working with the university clients is they in some ways create their own zoning within their institutions. So there were some restrictions. The setbacks were predominantly this idea of being adjacent to the hill.

It's along a very busy city corridor. Forbes Avenue and this is an area where we wanted to pull out very closely to the street and kind of hold the urban edge. But we also then had to be very careful in how to do that. And you see, like in the plans, that is reflected by undercutting the lower story so that there's more pedestrian flow, more movement kind of at the lower level, and then pulling the upper levels two through four out towards the street and then again stepping back at the top to create an outdoor green roof and terrace That's part of the think tank at the top floor.

00;14;12;27 - 00;14;23;04

DP

So let's talk a little bit about what I mentioned in the intro. This idea of using binary code to design the exterior elevations. Am I reading that correctly?

00;14;23;06 - 00;15;52;10

KS

Yeah, it was part of it, although my computer science friends would probably tell me that our coding is terrible. But there was an economy to this building that we were also looking to maintain in terms of its budget. And so we were exploring ways where we could create a systematic language of parts for the exterior that could be very expressive but also be very predictable and very manageable in terms of the number of parts.

And so by kind of going back to binary and saying let's just focus on two modules and let's really just break this up over the facade and let's look at how that might then create a facade that's very articulated and very rhythmic, partially because on the inside of the building we needed to accommodate both open workspace, but we also needed to accommodate the potentiality for lots of enclosed offices.

And what we didn't want is a kind of fixed grid necessarily on this facade. This is a space in an edge that I think everyone early on just really wanted to have something that was a little bit more dynamic that would shift with the light. And that's kind of where some of the detailing came in later. So we started basically just saying let's create a, you know, in a and a be a zero and a one, and then let's look at how we can begin to map those over this facade in a way that you can have a very regular plan on the inside, but an exterior that is perhaps a little more articulate.

00;15;52;12 - 00;16;06;20

DP

So you have these modules that you're imagining on the exterior and once you had those parts, you take a look at the plan and the form followed the function of what was going on on the interior in a way.

00;16;06;22 - 00;16;10;05

KS

Yeah, those two in our world push and pull on each other.

00;16;10;07 - 00;16;14;19

DP

Of course. Absolutely. Ever since Louis Sullivan and before him.

00;16;14;19 - 00;16;17;12

KS

Yes.

00;16;17;14 - 00;16;37;18

DP

So let's talk a little bit about the parameters for the building materials. So I read that approximately 30% of construction materials were sourced locally. 30% of the building materials contained recycled content, and 75% of construction waste was recycled or repurposed. Is that all correct?

00;16;37;20 - 00;17;17;04

KS

That is, you know, even though we were, again, trying to work fast and economically, there was still a mandate to make a building that was healthy and that would achieve a LEED Gold certification. And so we targeted many of these things. And then in some ways with the materials, what we would do is target a combination of what are some of the really significant things, and then can we find local sources for some of the really big pieces of the building.

So the terracotta comes from just over the border in Ohio and the brick this building is all brick from the Hanley plant. So 60 miles from here, just northeast of where I'm sitting now.

00;17;17;06 - 00;17;45;21

DP

So the brick facades to describe them. So you've got these flat plains of brick masonry on the facades on various elevations, and then you have these almost triangular protrusions which occur across the facade as well. Did you guys do a series of three dimensional drawings in the office? Did you work in BIM software? Did you model this thing in 3D and then show it to the client and then ultimately mock it up in the field? How did that work?

00;17;45;23 - 00;19;37;22

KS

Yes, yes, and yes, we do work entirely in them and we use that for what it's really good at. We also build a lot of physical models. And so all these projects we will build a series of physical models of varying scales as well. And so whether it's studying the patterning and the kind of decoding of the facade, we would start there.

And then as we develop, it will increase the scale of some of these models. One of the challenges with this building was the area that we had to build was a long, narrow strip that runs north south, which then means we have long east and west facades, which from an environmental strategy is the opposite of what you want.

And so we let that then start to influence the fenestration. And that's a little bit where this folded or triangle other elements came from because we began to think, look, we need something vertical that's going to shade the windows, right? They happened just to the south of every window and this kind of code system that we created. And then how do we make them a shape that can catch the light so that as the sun moves around the building all day, it creates shade.

But it also then can this be a plane that flashes with this kind of brightness at certain times during the day? And so we started with the idea of the just the form, and that came out of, yes, the digital models, the physical models, kind of getting everyone to buy into that as an idea. And then to be honest, the CM and the owner wanted to do those elements out of precast.

They had it in their head that that was the right answer. So, you know, instead of being too bullish about it, we said, well, let's mock up both. So we worked with technical folks on the brick side to get the shape right and get pieces that we can mock up. And then we mocked up some precast and everybody looked at it and said, The precast is terrible, let's do the brick.

00;19;37;24 - 00;19;41;00

DP

And did you use steel lintels then for those parts?

00;19;41;02 - 00;20;25;00

KS

One of the things that was a great challenge, so the building was continuous. We're leaving angles that everything is sitting on and we kind of stack the deck against the precast because the precast had to hang from additional steel, whereas we were able to get the brick shape to stack just on the regular mantle. So it wasn't meant to be manipulative, but it was meant to be economic, and we were able to come up with a way where we could kind of keep the same material and offset some of the cost that comes from doing a custom.

And these are large brick shapes. These are sixteen inches long by about nine inches deep. And so it's one shape, but it's a lot more substantial than a modular brick. But we were able to offset some of that by just how we were holding it up.

00;20;25;02 - 00;20;39;05

DP

Yeah, the brick really alters the scale of the building. I mean, I would imagine precast this massive of panels on the facades versus doing these very pretty finely tuned brick masonry panels.

00;20;39;07 - 00;20;40;18

KS

I'm glad it ended the way it did.

00;20;40;24 - 00;20;46;28

DP

And so I'm curious about software. Just as an aside, you guys are on Revit?

00;20;47;04 - 00;20;48;10

KS

We are Revit based, yeah.

00;20;48;12 - 00;21;04;19

DP

We were talking before we got rolling that you had been on Mac. Now you’re PC. I don't know much about either. I'm on ArchiCAD and have been on ArchiCAD for 25 years. Where you guys on a different software before you switched over to Revit and therefore a different operating system?

00;21;04;22 - 00;21;36;20

KS

We for many years were MicroStation and then we were AutoCAD by fairly early on we drove into Revit for a good portion of our work. Being able to work three dimensionally is just so important. We do use a lot of rhinoceros or rhino where we nest that in our Revit models as well for more complex geometries, things like that.