LEXINGTON, Ky.—Project partners HOK, Turner Construction and JRA Architects were on hand for a recent groundbreaking ceremony for the University of Kentucky’s new Health Education Building. The 500,000-square-foot structure, to be located at the intersection of Huguelet and University drives, will be home to the university’s programs in nursing, health science, public health, as well as the Center for Interprofessional and Community Health Education.

The Health Education Building will entail two wings, one with eight floors and the other with 10. In addition to classrooms and learning spaces, the building will feature modern simulation facilities so that students can experience real-world healthcare scenarios. The building will entail brick and glass for the north wing as well as a glass front for the south wing to allow in sunlight. Other architectural design elements include a “basketweave” façade and a glass lantern design at the building’s northeast corner.

When completed in 2026, the Health Education Building will be able to increase the number of students educated in the College of Medicine to 200 per year, one of the largest medical programs in the United States. The College of Nursing will also double its enrollment, offering both a bachelors of science in nursing (BSN) and an advanced BSN program as the Bluegrass State continues to deal with a shortage of healthcare workers. Meanwhile, the College of Health Sciences will offer programs in language pathology, physical therapy, athletic training and medical laboratory science for over 400 students, and the College of Public Health will be able to increase its student complement by 30 percent in both its graduate and undergrad programs.

The layout of the facility is meant to encourage collaboration between various classrooms and learning spaces.

The $380 million construction project’s funding was authorized by the Kentucky General Assembly and approved by the UK Board of Trustees last summer.

“As a testament to our collaborative spirit, this one facility will contain programs from four colleges and the Center for Interprofessional and Community Health Education. We will educate students for a new healthcare future, collaborate through transdisciplinary work, and attract and retain the best and brightest to advance Kentucky,” said UK President Eli Capilouto at the groundbreaking. “Our goal—our promise—is that when our students complete these programs and join the workforce, they are well-equipped to face today’s complex challenges and help all Kentuckians live longer and healthier lives.”

“This is a wonderful building for the university and the state, and the credit for that goes to university leadership, the deans and their staff,” Eli Hoisington, HOK co-CEO and design principal for the firm’s St. Louis studio, said at the event. “This has been one of the most collaborative and engaging processes our team has worked on. Looking at our practice across the country, the scale and breadth of what is happening here is unprecedented.”

Of their firm being selected as general contractor, Turner executive David Opalka said the Health Education Building will be a “world-class project” when it is completed.

“We look forward to helping the University expand its program and achieve their vision to increase the number of students prepared to meet the growing need for healthcare services in the Commonwealth of Kentucky,” Opalka stated on the firm’s website.

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INDIANAPOLIS—The Residential College (ResCo) at Butler University, which was first constructed in 1988, is getting ready for a major makeover. The facility, which is home mostly to first-year students at this Midwestern college, will undergo some $20 million in improvements over the next two years, according to the university.

Architecture firm Solomon Cordwell Buenz has designed the new look and feel for the ResCo, which will be realized by general contractor Turner Construction. Eighteen rooms were remodeled earlier as a test case, and commencing this summer, the remainder of the building’s rooms will be upgraded to match that schematic. The residence hall’s dining commons will also be renovated during the summer of 2023.

Re-envisioning the interior entails a new palette of muted colors and midcentury modern furniture. On the exterior, new patios will be designed as natural gathering spaces so that students can converse as well as dine in the outdoors in the warmer months.

In a recent news release from the university, Vice President for Student Affairs Dr. Frank E. Ross said that the renovation will allow for a modern vision of student life at Butler.

“Just as we are committed to providing our students with top-tier academics at Butler, we aim to create an excellent out-of-class experience for them,” Ross said, “and that includes our residential communities that are home for many Butler students.”

Butler University is home to 4,500 undergraduates and 1,000 graduate students. U.S. News & World Report has ranked the school as the top regional university in the Midwest, and The Princeton Review includes Butler on its list of “best colleges.”

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STORRS, Conn.—The Student Recreation Center, located at the heart of the University of Connecticut’s (UCONN) Storrs campus, has been recognized by the National Intramural and Recreational Sports Association as an Outstanding Facility of Merit as part of its 2021 NIRSA Awards.

The 191,000-square-foot recreation center was designed jointly by JCJ Architecture and Moody Nolan to replace an older athletic facility that offered only 25,000 square feet of space. Turner Construction, whose home base is in New York, served on the project as the general contractor.

Among the rec center’s amenities are a 20,000-square-foot fitness center, basketball and volleyball courts, running track, climbing wall, outdoor fitness spaces, as well as space that can be utilized for larger events.

One of the key features of the new recreation center, and which likely caught the attention of the NIRSA selection committee, was that UCONN wanted the new facility to be a place of inclusion, with programs focusing on personal growth and wellness for a diverse segment of students and the surrounding community.

“This project gave us the opportunity to work closely with the students, faculty and staff at UCONN and to create an exciting facility that meets the needs of this dynamic institution,” James E. LaPosta Jr., who serves as chief architectural officer at JCJ, said in a recent statement when the award was announced. “We are thrilled to have the team’s work recognized by NIRSA because of their focus on promoting the very best in design and innovative programs for collegiate recreation.”

Each year, the NIRSA Outstanding Facilities Awards recognize innovative work in collegiate recreational facilities in several categories, including renovations, ground-up and expansions. The judges examine nominees along such criteria as functionality, design and how closely the project hews to the original intentions for the recreational building. The selection process also looks for structures that will inspire other designers in the future.

In a statement to School Construction News, Cynthia Costanzo, executive director of UCONN Recreation, said the school was honored to have the Student Recreation Facility named as a 2021 NISRA Facility of Merit.

“This recognition establishes our facility amongst the best-of-the-best as we continue to strive to be leaders in collegiate recreation, helping our community to lead healthier lives,” she said.

“This past year has clearly reminded us of the importance of health and human connection,” JCJ’s LaPosta commented to School Construction News. “The Student Rec Center is a tangible representation of the University’s commitment to fostering wellness and personal growth. The NIRSA Facility of Merit designation is a testament to how the design team and the UCONN community came together to make the new Student Rec Center a reality.”

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ANNAPOLIS, Md.—Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM), Turner Construction Company, and the United States Naval Academy (USNA) recently celebrated the completion and opening of the USNA Cyber Studies Building – Hopper Hall. The facility, a design-build project led by Turner and designed by SOM, is the first building at a U.S. military academy dedicated to the study of cyber security. The project is designed to achieve LEED Silver certification from the USGBC.

Named for Rear Admiral Grace Hopper, a pioneer in computer science and one of the original developers of the world’s first commercial electronic computer, the building is the first academic structure named after a woman at a major U.S. service academy. It signifies a major step forward in the evolution of the U.S. military – almost five decades after the last academic USNA structure was erected, Hopper Hall advances a rapidly modernizing curriculum, one that will foster the next generation of military leadership.

The USNA campus is home to a diverse range of architectural styles, from Beaux-Arts to modernism. The site of Hopper Hall, at the edge of Isherwood Terrace along the Severn River, is located among the modernist Nimitz Library and Rickover Hall. The new building’s architecture is inspired by its neighbors, both in its massing and its materiality. Hopper Hall features a horizontal massing and a regular grid of punched windows that resemble the designs of the adjacent buildings, and its precast concrete facade echoes the color and texture of the stone and concrete surrounding Isherwood Terrace.

On the ground floor, Hopper Hall extends Isherwood Terrace into a two-story, 6,000-square-foot communal space called the “Bridge.” This informal lobby can transition into an event hall for exhibitions, presentations, and other ceremonies. The space begins at the building’s entrance and ends near an outdoor staircase leading to the waterfront, and it is aligned with the center of the terrace. This alignment, coupled with a full-height curtain wall on both ends, preserves historic views of the water.

Hopper Hall houses four departments within the cyber security discipline: Cyber Science, Computer Science, Electrical and Computer Engineering, and Weapons Robotics Controls. Approximately 70 percent of the six-story building is utilized for instruction and research within these departments, with a combined 68 classrooms, seminar spaces, laboratories, and research facilities. These rooms are supplemented by faculty offices, as well as a cafe and a multitude of additional spaces that bolster education in both cyber security and other USNA curricula.

The building includes a power studio lab, a green energy lab, an optics lab, an anechoic chamber, and an auditorium beside the faculty offices. It also augments the Robotics and Control Engineering major with an aerial robotics testing facility and, on the top level, an observatory serves as a valuable new resource for coursework in physics and other majors. On the ground level, two aquatic testing facilities – the Surface and Underwater Robotics Facility (SURF) and the Shared Waterfront Activities Lab (WAL) – are equipped with highly advanced technology, including sand filtration, sanitizing systems, video-capturing equipment, a three-dimensional motion-tracking system, and a monorail capable of lifting submersible vehicles weighing up to two tons.

The LEED® Silver certification will be targeted primarily by optimizing air quality, water use, energy performance, its window-to-wall ratio, and in its resiliency measures. The building’s resiliency features navigate the technical challenges of the site: Hopper Hall lies on reclaimed land within the 100-year floodplain. As a perimeter building, it had to be blast-resistant and floodproof, and incorporate a programmatic resiliency. This resiliency is achieved, in part, through the building’s stacking, in which the aquatic-based labs are located in the base of the building – where the facade is most solid – while the data labs, faculty offices, and instructional and event spaces are housed on the higher floors.

Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) is a collective of architects, designers, engineers and planners, responsible for some of the world’s most technically and environmentally advanced buildings, and significant public spaces. Turner is a North America-based, international construction services company founded in 1902.

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GREENCASTLE, Ind. — For 175 years, DePauw University has offered a quality academic experience in a small-scale residential setting. The recently completed Hoover Hall fulfills a core element of the university’s Campus Master Plan, which called for the transformation of the campus core into a place of greater connection, contemplation and creativity.

Hoover Hall serves as the primary dining space for first-year students and upper-class students living in university housing. Its new 48,600-square-foot facility (as of October 2016) seats more than 600 students in the main dining room, with dozens more accommodated in an array of smaller dining rooms. Here, faculty and students have the opportunity to extend classrooms lessons over mealtime discussions.

The design team included New York-based Turner Construction and RAMSA as the architect as well as Kenny Glass, the Indiana-based distributor of Kolbe Windows & Doors. RAMSA Associate Sean Foley; Kenny Glass’ Salesman/Estimator Jason Harrison; Senior Project Manager Jerry Morris of Turner Construction; and Doug Smith, trustee and chairman of DePauw’s Buildings and Ground Committee, explained how this project was approached and accomplished.

Q: What were the major design elements involved in the project?

Foley: DePauw’s new dining hall maintains a traditional exterior, but its interior shifts from dated cafeteria lines in favor of exhibition-style cooking with a menu of foods from around the world. Designed in the Georgian style, popular between 1720 and 1830, it features steep-angled slate roofs with copper accents, hand-molded red brick, Indiana limestone and painted trim that blend with the rest of the campus.

DePauw University’s Hoover Hall is designed in a restrained Georgian style, referencing the adjacent Memorial Student Union, as well as Asbury Hall and Harrison Hall, academic buildings located to the north. It was important to carry forward this design language through the details. Important aesthetic details for the windows include simulated divided lites, decorative brick mold trims and custom color matching to the trim of the adjacent buildings. Most importantly, the windows in Hoover Hall are very large, so that the activity within the building is visible and transparent from the surrounding quad and serves to draw students into the building. Not only was Kolbe Windows & Doors able to produce both the windows and exterior doors so that both components were complementary, they were able to produce the extremely large windows that our design required.

Q: What did you learn from the project?

 Harrison: The architect wanted really large windows for this project, so we got Kolbe involved. What I like about Kolbe is that they don’t say “no” right away; they look into it and see what’s possible. I really enjoyed working with Kolbe’s John Fenn and the Architectural Support team. They helped us find the right option that would meet the architect’s design. Kolbe’s team recommended a custom Ultra Series Majesta Double Hung Transom to match the look and sizes envisioned by RAMSA. Many of the windows’ frame dimensions span 85 by 118 inches.

Morris: One of the more challenging aspects for us with the windows was perfecting the curved units that flank the main entrance. On the flat sash windows, simulated divided lites were specified and worked fine. On the curved units, simulated just weren’t possible, so Kolbe was able to modify their traditional design to match the desired look.

Harrison: At first, the radius was too sharp to produce. Kolbe kept making adjustments until they arrived at the right size and curvature that met the architect’s expectations. We actually ended up making these curved, flanking windows with PDLs [performance divided lites.] They’re almost exactly like the flat sash windows. The only difference is that curved glass cannot have grilles in the airspace. It was fun to see what Kolbe can do.

Morris: Way up front, Kolbe was identified as a preferred vendor by RAMSA. Through the early discussions about the project, it was clear that they were the best choice for matching the architectural theme and needs for the building. Once the system was specified, we worked to create the detailed shop drawings and sample review to ensure the project’s constructability. It took several months to make sure each opening would be right, so that when the crew arrived on site everything would install as quickly and smoothly as possible. From the perimeter fence to the wall of the building, we only had 20 feet. Every maneuver had to be planned. Given the size of the windows and confines of the site, that effort upfront made a difference.

Q: What was unique about this project that perhaps differed from projects that you’ve completed in the past?

Harrison: Kolbe offers several extruded aluminum brickmould options, but the architect wanted something unlike any of these and drew a custom profile. RAMSA and Kolbe were extremely detailed in working together to make changes down to 1/16 inch to perfect it. The same custom brickmould used on Hoover Hall was used next door on the Memorial Student Union Building. The Union also relied on Kolbe’s Ultra Series doors and Majesta windows to update its façade and match the new dining hall. The units not only have the same brickmould, they also have the same PDLs, glass and finish. Kolbe also prepared all the doors with EPT (electric power transfer) to assist with their automation and installation. They routed grooves in the wood before the aluminum exteriors were applied to make the electrical connections as easy as possible.

Foley: The project was designed to target a LEED Gold certification. A high-performing exterior envelope was key to achieving this.

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