Staging Buildings Bring Permanence to Transition

The staging building’s first occupants-dancers-will use the roll-up doors to create a performance space that bridges indoors and outdoors. The roll-up doors will also be useful when bringing in equipment for future users.

With nothing but a shortage of space on the horizon, it makes sense to build permanent surge buildings rather than dedicate money to temporary structures. California colleges and universities, faced not only with the baby boom echo, are increasingly turning to the staging building when campus structures are closed for earthquake-tolerance upgrades.

The initial role of the new Kinross staging building is to provide space for departments displaced by seismic retrofit projects at the University of California at Los Angeles. But, despite its simplicity, this three-story surge building is so appealing, its first occupants may be tempted to stay when their original buildings reopen in 2004.
"In lieu of trailers, this is first-class flex space," says Steven Ehrlich, FAIA, who has observed an increased demand for permanent surge spaces in California. His firm, Steven Ehrlich Architects, designed the Kinross staging building to serve as a "flexible factory," cycling in different departments on a two-year schedule. Large volumes with exposed steel and mechanical ducts offer a tough industrial aesthetic and lend the facility to multiple future uses.

"The Kinross was fairly inexpensive, and I think that’s because Steven optimized every element he used," says UCLA Campus Architect Mark Fisher. "We were looking at generic office buildings for the same cost."

The larger the facility, the more cumbersome the fire rating, so Ehrlich designers avoided fire-rated construction. Because steel was not relied upon to provide all the structural resistance, designers were not required to enclose the steel in drywall or apply an expensive, unattractive fire-retardant coating. "It’s not a precious building," says Ehrlich. Cleverly navigating building codes drove down costs for the 75,000-square-foot staging building to $9.8 million.

"All the steel is vertically load-bearing, but it’s not moment-frame steel, meaning it does not take out any of the lateral loads," explains Ehrlich. Instead, concrete masonry separation walls resist the lateral loads-a serious concern on a campus that suffered extensive damage from lateral movement in the Northridge earthquake of 1994.
The fire-separation walls are arranged in a tripartite scheme. Cleaving the concrete block by as much as two inches provided shadows and texture. Fisher says the new staging building offers a concrete block version of the split-face tripartite at the Getty Museum, an architectural landmark that can be seen from UCLA’s campus.

High volume ceilings on the ground and third floors offer flexibility and separate two academic departments, while office space on the second floor acts a sound buffer.

High volume spaces of about 18 feet were prescribed for the ground level and third level, while the middle level has a floor-to-ceiling height of 13 feet and is broken up into rooms and offices. Acting as an acoustical buffer between the upper and lower floors, the middle level will prove important for the first two occupant groups-the Art Department and the Dance & World Culture Department. "Our dance troupe uses a lot of heavy drums and tends to be a bit noisy, and the art students tend to be quiet," Fisher notes.

Knowing that the art and dance departments would inaugurate the facility challenged designers to accommodate them while also designing a space that remained flexible for future occupants. "We have high ceiling dance spaces with sprung floors in the same building with art studios and a metal shop," says Fisher. "The building is very responsive to the initial program and also designed to be flexible for the next program. For example, those sprung floors are on top of concrete so they can be pulled out quickly, and we can turn this building into office space if we need to."

Light was brought in using skylights and glass block because inclusion of an atrium would have required architects to meet codes that compromised flexibility.

Other architectural features underscore the difference between a temporary surge facility and the Kinross, which is also intended to help improve the profile of UCLA’s Southwest Campus. A large roof overhang extends over the southern exterior wall to block out the sun and reduces the heat-load on the façade. The west end incorporates a series of garden walls, and a private garden off the dance studio gives dancers a preview of the garden theater they will use in their permanent quarters.

Ever mindful of building codes, designers were able to draw in natural light without atriums-and the added costs and special conditions that come with them. The design team opted instead to install skylights and glass block floors to bring light from the roof to the ground level. Similarly, placing some stairways on the exterior eliminated the associated finishes of the interior stairs.

Two roll-up garage doors can be opened to make the barrier between outdoors and indoors disappear, allowing outdoor performances or class sessions. In addition, the garage doors facilitate the regular movement of equipment in and out of the building.
"The great strength of this building is its honesty and the smart use of building materials," says Fisher. "The occupants might not want to go back to their independent buildings when they’re opened. In fact, they’ve already said they believe this is as good as the space they’ll be occupying later."