Kaitlyn M. Palmer, SE, PE, Nathan C. Roy, PE, Kevin Bergeron, AIA, And Michael Prattico, AIA 2024-03-02 13:28:29
An innovative fine arts building used steel to achieve its desired open layout and undulating glass façade, helping make it a campus centerpiece.
ROCHESTER INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY (RIT), one of the top universities in the nation focusing on the intersection of technology, arts, and design, recently completed its largest construction project since opening its current campus location in the 1960s.
It’s a shed—in proper name only.
The Student Hall for Exploration and Development (SHED), opened in fall 2023, is a creative hub that brings the arts to the center of campus. Its features include a flexible event theater, studios for dance and music, and large active classrooms and makerspaces that foster collaboration and learning. It’s prominently located on the campus’s “Quarter Mile” walkway, which connects the academic and residential sides of campus.
Beyond serving as the creative hub, the SHED provides a missing link by connecting Wallace Library with Monroe Hall and the Campus Center student union. All told, the SHED has a 1,900-ton steel frame. Design architect William Rawn Associates collaborated on the design with architect of record HBT Architects and structural engineer LeMessurier.
RIT History
Founded in 1829, RIT originally built its campus in downtown Rochester, N.Y. However, in 1959, the planned Interstate 490 extension prompted RIT to weigh staying downtown or relocating entirely and creating a new campus. RIT had goals to grow and establish itself as a leader in technical education, and with those in mind, it decided to move six miles from Rochester and create a new home in nearby suburb Henrietta.
RIT’s directive for the campus design noted that “academic buildings will be rugged but simple. The range of materials, construction techniques, and finishes must necessarily be limited, and beauty must come through quality of space and proportion and a sense of ordered form.” The school called on five modernist architect firms to collaborate on the design of the new campus: Hugh Stubbins and Associates, Kevin Roche John Dinkeloo and Associates, Harry Weese Associates, Edward Larrabee Barnes Associates and Anderson, Beckwith and Haible.
Each firm was responsible for a portion of the campus, with LeMessurier as the structural engineer for all the projects. The Henrietta campus included 13 academic buildings that totaled more than 1 million sq. ft and a new residential dorm complex. Buildings were clad in brick with a heavy massing in the Brutalist form of architecture. The SHED, characterized by an undulating glass façade, large open spaces, and exposed structural steel framing, embodies the initial vision for the Henrietta campus that buildings should be “rugged but simple,” and emphasize “space and proportion and a sense of ordered form.”
SHED Layout
The SHED is comprised of the West Wing adjacent to Wallace Library and the East Wing adjacent to Monroe Hall, and those wings are connected by two bridges that complete a circular heart of the building. Each department has a unique portion of the building, and those portions are linked by interconnecting corridors that foster collaboration. Makerspaces and active classrooms are located around the central area called the “Hub” in the six-story West Wing, promoting creativity and exploration.
The flexible event theater, located at the south end of the West Wing, also abuts the Hub and is prominently featured with a large cantilevered east edge and a double skin façade. The music studio is nestled into the northeast corner of the building, maximizing natural sound isolation. Projecting out on the southeast corner is the dance studio with an elegant sunshade structure on the exterior of the façade.
Throughout the complex, open workspaces and meeting nooks create a comfortable and collaborative environment. Glass façades showcase the innovative and collective creative activity energizing the building.
The Hub
The West Wing’s focal point is the Hub, a five-story atrium that is also part of the “circular heart” design with a large glass façade providing transparency to the community. The Hub is ringed with a circulation path at the first floor from the West Wing that carries through the north bridge, the East Wing, and completes the circle at the south bridge. Layered on the circulation ring is a second ring that forms the bridges’ soffits and the East Wing, creating a suspended rigging platform within the West Wing. Active classrooms, project team areas, makerspaces, and performance venues surround the Hub.
The active classrooms, ranging from 60 ft by 60 ft to 60 ft by 70 ft, are column-free areas arranged in a stacked and staggered configuration throughout the building’s West Wing. W33 to W36 beams and W40 to PG48 (48-in. Built-up plate girders) support larger spans while minimizing vibrations from walking. A focal point from the Quarter Mile approach is the active classroom cantilevering over the pathway. The 10-in.-deep second-floor framing hangs from deeper members at Level 3, creating a 15-ft overhang with a razor-thin soffit. A generous floor-to-floor height of 20 ft aligns with the scale of the spaces and accommodates the steel framing depths at Level 3.
The industrial aesthetic and functionality of the active teaching and makerspaces are emphasized through exposed steel framing, decking, and MEP systems. The design team collaborated closely with acoustical consultant Threshold Acoustics to incorporate built-up floor assemblies and hung acoustic barrier ceilings that address noise control. Active classrooms typically utilize floating wood floors with pre-spaced isolators and roll-out batting, while makerspaces feature concrete topping slabs with a ¾-in. Resilient mat.
Serving the Arts
A 300-seat, 4,700-sq. Ft, 70-ft-tall flexible theater with a double-skin glass façade projects outward from the south end of the West Wing. Flexibility is paramount to the design and allows the glass-box theater to transform to a black-box theater with blackout shades integrated into the façade. Two levels of balconies hang from the roof and use a thin structure to maximize headroom. A tension wire grid and rigging steel are also hung from the roof steel to provide full flexibility for theater performances.
Telescoping seating is designed and stored at the back of the theater to provide additional seating for performances. An expansion joint between the main West Wing and the theater isolates sound transmission. A topping slab and resilient flooring system below the wood floor minimizes sound transmission from the makerspace directly below the theater.
The flexible theater is enclosed with a double-skin glass curtainwall, allowing airflow within the cavity to improve thermal efficiency and mitigate sound transmission between the interior and exterior. Architecturally exposed hollow structural section (HSS) framing supports the double-skin curtainwall system and extends vertically for 36 ft from the theater floor to the roof. Outriggers from the vertical HSS support a grating system that allows access to the double-skin cavity at five levels. HSS members are carefully aligned to the glass joints, maintaining a seamless appearance.
The end connections of the HSS verticals were designed with fixed moment connections at both ends to minimize member size while adhering to stringent deflection criteria for the façade. The HSS members are supported at their bases for gravity loads and utilize vertical slip connections with moment fixity at their tops to permit vertical movement of the long-span roof framing. The construction documents outline a planned installation sequence for the HSS façade support framing, scheduled after steel erection and slab placement. This sequencing ensured stringent installation tolerances on the steel to meet the specified critical façade requirements.
The Music Instructional Studio, situated to the northeast, completes the north bridge’s exterior curve. Like the active classrooms in the West Wing, hangers allow a thin cantilevered soffit that creates a warm welcoming space for the café below. Resilient flooring isolates noise transmission between the two spaces, and a double-height music studio space allows for enchanting musical performances with expansive views of the Quarter Mile.
The dance studio at the southeast corner projects from the central form and is linked to the West Wing by the southern bridge and the music studio by the East Wing. It has W30 beams at the floor and roof to cantilever out, creating a column-free space below and column-free interior space for unobstructed views. A finite element analysis was used to design the dance studio for rhythmic excitation from dance and aerobics. Forcing functions were applied to evaluate the acceleration of the structure under rhythmic excitation, tuning the structure to ensure the comfort of the occupants of the dance studio.
From the cantilevered structural form of the dance studio projects a cantilevered, tensioned sunshade structure with a shaped WT at the base and top and pre-tensioned cables supporting individual blades. Vertical HSS posts with fixed moment connections were provided behind each tension cable to support the tension sunshade and glass façade while meeting deflection requirements.
Providing Connection
Establishing a connection between the East and West wings was crucial to the project. The north and south glass-enclosed bridges shape the SHED’s central heart and provide the connection. The south bridge, a single-story structure, is 88 ft long and 9 ft wide at its narrowest and links both wings’ second floors. Meanwhile, the double-story north bridge is 67 ft long and 19 ft wide at its narrowest. The north bridge connects the West Wing’s second floor to the East Wing’s second and third floors.
Several constraints influenced the design of the bridges: ensuring a minimum clear height below the bridge to accommodate fire truck access, incorporating a flared bridge in plan that narrows at mid-span and widens at the ends, and integrating a continuous sloped roof descending from north to south. The roof at Level 4 in the north bridge transitions through the East Wing and resumes at Level 3 in the south bridge.
The primary structural system for both bridges consists of a pair of W36 girders spanning down the center at the roof level. Due to the flared plan shape, the girders were set at the narrowest point of the bridge. Sloped, cantilevered roof purlins of varying lengths were stacked perpendicular to the W36 girders. The sloped roof purlins support architecturally exposed HSS hangers on each side of the bridge.
The hangers support the lower floors and the wind girts, minimizing the required curtain wall mullions depth. Hanging the floor structure from the roof allowed minimal depth for the floor structure to meet the required clear height for access. The framing at the bridge floor utilizes W10 members with steel deck inset between, aligning the top of the composite deck with the top of the beam. A further floor framing complication at the north bridge was the connection to multiple floor levels on each side of the bridge, which required built-up 10-in. Members to be kinked because interior hangers did not provide the desired openness of the design.
In-plane steel trusses at the floor and roof levels act as the diaphragm. An expansion joint is located at each bridge’s west end and is laterally supported with a steel moment frame, while the east ends are connected and laterally supported by the East Wing.
Finding a Name
To foster student ownership of the new building, RIT leadership held a competition to name the complex. Jonathan Dharmadi, a fourth-year student with a focus in new media design, won the student competition and christened the building the Student Hall for Exploration and Development.
The SHED name captures the true essence of the building and its role as a focal point for the RIT community. The building serves as the nexus for linking arts with technology, fostering connections, and offering dedicated spaces for learning and exploration—with the goal of nurturing the development of future leaders.
Owner
Rochester Institute of Technology
Design Architect
William Rawn Associates
Architect of Record
HBT Architects (part of MRB Group)
Structural Engineer
LeMessurier
Construction Manager
Welliver
Steel Team Fabricator
Kinsley Steel, Inc.
Steel Detailer
International Design Services, Inc.
Bender-Roller
Greiner Industries, Inc.
Kaitlyn M. Palmer (kpalmer@lemessurier.com) and Nathan C. Roy (nroy@lemessurier.com) are principals with LeMessurier. Kevin Bergeron (kbergeron@rawnarch.com) is an associate principal with William Rawn Associates. Michael Prattico (michael.prattico@mrbgroup.com) is a senior project manager with MRB Group.
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