Founders Hall at the University of Washington Foster School of Business, the first mass timber building at Seattle campus of Univ. of Washington, was recently completed. The 84,800-sf building creates a new hub for community, entrepreneurship, and innovation, according the project’s design architect LMN Architects.
The design creates an intersection of three volumes hosting student-focused team collaboration spaces, program offices, classrooms, and gathering spaces, all connected by a five-story steel and wood feature stair that weaves through the mass timber structure.
The community connector houses the feature stair, circulation spaces, pre-function spaces, and two tiered classrooms that can be set for 65 or 135 students. The team bar provides 28 team and interview rooms, four executive conference rooms, a student commons with an outdoor terrace, and a rooftop event forum.
The building was organized to foster spontaneous and open interaction between staff, business professionals, and students by positioning program offices, alumni offices, and career services offices adjacent to student spaces on every level. With meeting spaces accessible to all for shared use, students and program staff will be able to interact with one another daily.
Mass timber construction cuts embodied carbon
The use of mass timber lowers the project’s embodied carbon substantially with the use of Douglas fir creating a warm and inviting interior atmosphere. The exterior architectural expression draws from the material palette established by other Foster School buildings and reveals moments of the mass timber structure.
Founders Hall is the first new building to meet the University of Washington Green Building Standards, reducing carbon emissions by over 90%. The design takes advantage of Seattle’s weather by integrating natural and mechanical ventilation to provide a comfortable environment for users with minimal reliance on conditioned air. As an integrated element in both the interior and exterior expression, the building incorporates a mass timber structure with cross-laminated timber decking. This reflects the Foster School’s connection to the Northwest and the local wood products industry, also reducing the building’s embodied carbon by almost 60%.
Many of the existing nearby Douglas fir and sequoia trees on site were preserved. The peeled-away brick façade paired with carefully placed glazing exposes the timber inside the building while providing views of the Douglas firs, giving the higher floors of the building an immersive Northwest forest experience.
The project partnered with Aureus Earth, a provider of carbon offsetting incentive programs, to create a proof of concept for long-term biogenic carbon storage in a mass timber building. The building will store more than 1,000 tons of CO2 for decades, keeping carbon out of the atmosphere for the lifetime of the building.
On the project team:
Owner and/or developer: The University of Washington
Design Architect: LMN Architects
Design-Builder: Hoffman Construction
MEP engineer: PAE Consulting Engineers
Structural engineer: Magnusson Klemencic Associates
Related Stories
| Feb 11, 2011
Sustainable features on the bill for dual-building performing arts center at Soka University of America
The $73 million Soka University of America’s new performing arts center and academic complex recently opened on the school’s Aliso Viejo, Calif., campus. McCarthy Building Companies and Zimmer Gunsul Frasca Architects collaborated on the two-building project. One is a three-story, 47,836-sf facility with a grand reception lobby, a 1,200-seat auditorium, and supports spaces. The other is a four-story, 48,974-sf facility with 11 classrooms, 29 faculty offices, a 150-seat black box theater, rehearsal/dance studio, and support spaces. The project, which has a green roof, solar panels, operable windows, and sun-shading devices, is going for LEED Silver.
| Feb 11, 2011
Research facility separates but also connects lab spaces
California State University, Northridge, consolidated its graduate and undergraduate biology and mathematics programs into one 90,000-sf research facility. Architect of record Cannon Design worked on the new Chaparral Hall, creating a four-story facility with two distinct spaces that separate research and teaching areas; these are linked by faculty offices to create collaborative spaces. The building houses wet research, teaching, and computational research labs, a 5,000-sf vivarium, classrooms, and administrative offices. A four-story outdoor lobby and plaza and an outdoor staircase provide orientation. A covered walkway links the new facility with the existing science complex. Saiful/Bouquet served as structural engineer, Bard, Rao + Athanas Consulting Engineers served as MEP, and Research Facilities Design was laboratory consultant.
| Feb 11, 2011
A feast of dining options at University of Colorado community center, but hold the buffalo stew
The University of Colorado, Boulder, cooked up something different with its new $84.4 million Center for Community building, whose 900-seat foodservice area consists of 12 micro-restaurants, each with its own food options and décor. Centerbrook Architects of Connecticut collaborated with Denver’s Davis Partnership Architects and foodservice designer Baker Group of Grand Rapids, Mich., on the 323,000-sf facility, which also includes space for a career center, international education, and counseling and psychological services. Exterior walls of rough-hewn, variegated sandstone and a terra cotta roof help the new facility blend with existing campus buildings. Target: LEED Gold.
| Feb 11, 2011
Chicago high-rise mixes condos with classrooms for Art Institute students
The Legacy at Millennium Park is a 72-story, mixed-use complex that rises high above Chicago’s Michigan Avenue. The glass tower, designed by Solomon Cordwell Buenz, is mostly residential, but also includes 41,000 sf of classroom space for the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and another 7,400 sf of retail space. The building’s 355 one-, two-, three-, and four-bedroom condominiums range from 875 sf to 9,300 sf, and there are seven levels of parking. Sky patios on the 15th, 42nd, and 60th floors give owners outdoor access and views of Lake Michigan.
| Feb 11, 2011
Apartment complex caters to University of Minnesota students
Twin Cities firm Elness Swenson Graham Architects designed the new Stadium Village Flats, in the University of Minnesota’s East Bank Campus, with students in mind. The $30 million, six-story residential/retail complex will include 120 furnished apartments with fitness rooms and lounges on each floor. More than 5,000 sf of first-floor retail space and two levels of below-ground parking will complete the complex. Opus AE Group Inc., based in Minneapolis, will provide structural engineering services.
| Feb 11, 2011
Four-story library at Salem State will hold half a million—get this—books!
Salem State University in Massachusetts broke ground on a new library and learning center in December. The new four-story library will include instructional labs, group study rooms, and a testing center. The modern, 124,000-sf design by Boston-based Shepley Bulfinch includes space for 500,000 books and study space for up to a thousand students. Sustainable features include geothermal heating and cooling, rainwater harvesting, and low-flow plumbing fixtures.
| Jan 21, 2011
Primate research facility at Duke improves life for lemurs
Dozens of lemurs have new homes in two new facilities at the Duke Lemur Center in Raleigh, N.C. The Releasable Building connects to a 69-acre fenced forest for free-ranging lemurs, while the Semi-Releasable Building is for lemurs with limited-range privileges.
| Jan 21, 2011
Nothing dinky about these residences for Golden Gophers
The Sydney Hall Student Apartments combines 125 student residences with 15,000 sf of retail space in the University of Minnesota’s historic Dinkytown neighborhood, in Minneapolis.
| Jan 21, 2011
Virginia community college completes LEED Silver science building
The new 60,000-sf science building at John Tyler Community College in Midlothian, Va., just earned LEED Silver, the first facility in the Commonwealth’s community college system to earn this recognition. The facility, designed by Burt Hill with Gilbane Building Co. as construction manager, houses an entire floor of laboratory classrooms, plus a new library, student lounge, and bookstore.
| Jan 20, 2011
Community college to prepare next-gen Homeland Security personnel
The College of DuPage, Glen Ellyn, Ill., began work on the Homeland Security Education Center, which will prepare future emergency personnel to tackle terrorist attacks and disasters. The $25 million, 61,100-sf building’s centerpiece will be an immersive interior street lab for urban response simulations.
