Rising from the slope of a large bluff on the foothills of Utah’s imposing Wasatch Mountains, Brigham Young University’s new Life Sciences Building reveals the inspiration of its remarkable setting.
Multiple facets and elevations climb dramatically as if shaped by the same tectonic and erosional forces that have created massive escarpments and deeply incised canyons on the surrounding landscape. From inside, the expansive windows reveal that landscape while flooding learning, meeting and research spaces with natural light.
It’s a perfect metaphor for the College of Life Science’s mission to reveal the natural world to the human intellect.
This video gives a good sense of all the building has to offer. The camera “flies” through varied interior spaces – including teaching and research labs, auditoriums, corridors and common areas, a rooftop greenhouse and a massive central atrium. Exterior shots show how the complexly terraced profile echoes the mountainous landscape overlooking the BYU campus. From both inside and outside the building, you can see a prominent “spine” rising in stages through the center of the building, much like a ridgeline defining the center of a mountain’s mass.
Architectural Nexus, the firm selected to design the building, asked LCG Façades to get involved in the project early, providing design engineering expertise for the glass curtain wall and metal panel systems that would serve as the building envelope.
Ted Derby, business development manager at LCG Façades, says that a strong, lightweight cladding material was needed to meet the building’s seismic requirements: The massive Wasatch Fault that created the rugged setting is still active today. At the same time, a pressure-equalized rainscreen was required due to Utah’s adoption of the 2012 IBC Building Code.
To meet these needs, LCG Façades designed its exclusive SL-2200 rainscreen system and chose ALPOLIC® aluminum composite materials, fabricated at LCG’s 40,000 square-foot facility in Salt Lake City.
One of the key factors in achieving the project’s budgetary and quality goals, Derby says, was that “We could control most of the materials that were going on the job through our fabrication facility that allows us to fabricate curtain wall systems as well as metal composite panel systems.”
The central “spine” towers above like an alpine peak.
ALPOLIC® materials are most visible on the building’s “spine,” rising in a stepped fashion to tower above lower elevations on either side. Here, panels finished in a silver mica evoke the great blue limestone formation that caps the spine of the Wasatch Mountains. The same fire-retardant ACM panels in a custom blue mica bring hues of a summer sky to window openings and other reveals.
If you can’t be hiking or skiing the Wasatch, studying their flora and fauna in this evocative building may be the next best thing. In the new BYU Life Sciences Building, ALPOLIC® materials are truly helping to do nature proud.
Contact Information:
Phone Number: 1.800.422.7270
Fax Number: 757.436.1896
Email: info@ALPOLIC.com
Website: www.alpolic-americas.com
Related Stories
| Dec 14, 2011
Tyler Junior College and Sika Sarnafil team up to save energy
Tyler Junior College wanted a roofing system that wouldn’t need any attention for a long time.
| Dec 13, 2011
Lutron’s Commercial Experience Center awarded LEED Gold
LEED certification of the Lutron facility was based on a number of green design and construction features that positively impact the project itself and the broader community. These features include: optimization of energy performance through the use of lighting power, lighting controls and HVAC, plus the use of daylight.
| Dec 12, 2011
AIA Chicago announces Skidmore, Owings & Merrill as 2011 Firm of the Year
SOM has been a leader in the research and development of specialized technologies, new processes and innovative ideas, many of which have had a palpable and lasting impact on the design profession and the physical environment.
| Dec 12, 2011
Mojo Stumer takes top honors at AIA Long Island Design Awards
Firm's TriBeCa Loft wins "Archi" for interior design.
| Dec 10, 2011
10 Great Solutions
The editors of Building Design+Construction present 10 “Great Solutions” that highlight innovative technology and products that can be used to address some of the many problems Building Teams face in their day-to-day work. Readers are encouraged to submit entries for Great Solutions; if we use yours, you’ll receive a $25 gift certificate. Look for more Great Solutions in 2012 at: www.bdcnetwork.com/greatsolutions/2012.
| Dec 10, 2011
Energy performance starts at the building envelope
Rainscreen system installed at the west building expansion of the University of Arizona’s Meinel Optical Sciences Center in Tucson, with its folded glass wall and copper-paneled, breathable cladding over precast concrete.
| Dec 10, 2011
Turning Balconies Outside In
Operable glass balcony glazing systems provide solution to increase usable space in residential and commercial structures.
| Dec 10, 2011
BIM tools to make your project easier to manage
Two innovations—program manager Gafcon’s SharePoint360 project management platform and a new BIM “wall creator” add-on developed by ClarkDietrich Building Systems for use with the Revit BIM platform and construction consultant—show how fabricators and owner’s reps are stepping in to fill the gaps between construction and design that can typically be exposed by working with a 3D model.
| Dec 7, 2011
NSF International qualifies first wallcoverings distributor to the New American National Standard for Sustainable Wallcoverings
TRI-KES demonstrates leadership in environmental stewardship as the first distributor to earn qualification.
| Dec 7, 2011
Autodesk agrees to acquire Horizontal Systems
Acquisition extends and accelerates cloud-based BIM solutions for collaboration, data, and lifecycle management.
