Texas Tech University School of Art – 3d Art Annex
Work with Team Haas Architects
MEP Design: Tom Green
Area: 32,000 sq. ft.
The project included the transformation of an existing university food warehouse into a home for 3D Arts at Texas Tech, including ceramics, sculpture, jewelry and metal design, woodshop, welding and foundry, and a kiln yard.
I worked as a design intern under my mentor and now friend Michael Guarino, analyzing construction drawings from the original warehouse structure, drafting accurate plans, elevations, and building sections, and targeting strategic and minimal modifications. Michael and Stan Haas’ intent was to maintain the existing warehouse structure, and to create a continuous corridor that zig-zags through to a black box gallery space toward the corridor end. The walls would be stacked panels of autoclaved aerated concrete, light enough to allow the existing slab to remain unreinforced. They were angled to create gathering places and gallery space within the hallways, and were continuously negotiated with evolving departmental needs.
Throughout the design, documentation, and bidding phase, the MEP systems, dust and contaminant collection, continued to command a greater proportion of the budget. Added high windows were eliminated, the perforated metal and steel cube outdoor gallery/entry space was out, etc. But the existing building remained a nurturing presence, and with the rococo dust tubes and storage tanks, create a certain kind of blank backdrop to the processes of the school. And it is not a precious space, so that it invites future intervention and cultural modification.
A Hebel panel is a lightweight precast building product made from sand, cement, lime, water, gypsum, and aluminum powder. The mixture is poured into a mold, and the aluminum creates a reaction that produces hydrogen bubbles, which make it insulating and lightweight . It is cut into shapes and cured in a high-pressure autoclave. It can have less than half the embodied carbon of a concrete block wall and is very lightweight. But it still requires portland cement, steel, aluminum, very high temperatures, not very recyclable, not carbon negative.