With the construction of its new Wellness Community Wellness building, George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., Adds a facility that not only satisfies current needs, but also designed to be flexible for future uses.
When it opens in August, the 25,000 -square -foot building will serve as the first installation of school practices for its band Pep, The Green Machine, considered by the National Collegiate Athletic Association as one of the best Pep bands in the country.
The installation will also offer space for interior sports, student programming and events.
“This is really a student building first,” said Rose Pascarell, a vice president of university life, in a press release after the projects in June 2024. We want to be able to meet more easily. We want to participate with each other. “
The new facility will highlight the new GMU logo.
Courtesy of Powers Brown Architecture
A little temporary
Hired under a design design delivery method, the Hoar Construction team, Powers Brown Architecture and IMEG Corp. They established by 2023 to develop an economic solution that satisfies the needs of the University for new programming spaces.
Working within a budget of $ 11 million, the team did not foresee a traditional concrete or steel structure. Instead, the university aimed at a “somewhat temporary” structure, says David Rowson, a senior project manager for Powers Brown.
“They did not look for a building forever on the campus,” he says. “They went with a lighter construction.”
“You could literally draw pieces and pieces.”
—David Rowson, senior project manager, Powers Brown Architecture
The final concept creates a central concrete structure flanked by two tent structures extending from the opposite sides. The tent structures are steel frames formed by cold wrapped in tensioned fabrics. The concept is similar to bubble designs that are often used through pools, tennis courts and fields of practice, but more robust, according to Rowson. A significant difference is that, unlike a bubble, a tent structure can provide a vertical authorization within a narrow footprint, which according to him allowed the team to maximize the use of the 2.8 hectare site.
At first, Rowson says that design aimed to take advantage of the translation of tissue in white tense. “Our initial design let a lot of light in and out,” he recalls. “So during the day the space would lit almost naturally in the daylight. But then at night, when it lit up, it would emanate a shine of the tent structure, so it could serve as a kind of lighthouse on the campus.”
However, as the project evolved, Rowson says the university decided to condition the spaces to be comfortable for students during the hot months and cold winters. As a result, the team made the unusual step to install an additional layer of tense fabric on the inside of the tent frame.
Between the two layers of tissue, insulation was added, included spray insulation to steel members.
Hoar oversaw the cure of the concrete slab for the whole place, as well as the construction of twelve 48 -foot panels for the central building that were lifted in place on the crane.
Photo courtesy of Hoar Construction
Student spaces
The central concrete structure has a lobby entrance, a reception, several offices, a kitchen, four activity rooms and a laundry room.
Rowson says that, in addition to providing the opportunity to create smaller enclosed spaces, the concrete structure also serves as a fire break.
The tent spaces of the new installation are designed to house intramural and recreational basketball games, as well as serve as a installation dedicated to the practices of the PEP band of the University. The structure will include a full size NCAA basketball court, as well as additional tracks for basketball and volleyball games.
“This is really a student building.”
– Rose Pascarell, Vice President of University Life, University of George Mason
Although the installation is in line with the current university program, the design provides George Mason the flexibility to eliminate the tent structures later and to build a more permanent installation. The university could also develop the concrete structure 48 feet high as an autonomous building. The structure currently only uses the ground floor. Above the roof of the drop, there is a space of more than 30 feet high as a future shell space.
“You could literally remove pieces and pieces,” says Rowson. “You could take an entire tent and move it somewhere else, if you want.”
After completing the design in the spring of 2024, the team began construction. Since the work had to be complete in just over a year, the team had to focus on long lead items, such as Switch Gear.
“We have made some assumptions that this building will not use more than 2,000 Amperis,” says Nam Ngo, head of the Hoar Construction project. “So we were very careful during the design of not overcoming.”
The building will house basketball courts for intramural and recreational games, as well as in the practice space for the PEP band of the school.
Photo courtesy of Hoar Construction
Conditioned spaces
The spaces needed to condition -at 68 degrees to warm up and 72 to cool. The system is designed with three units on the roof for heating and cooling: one for each tent space and another for the concrete structure.
“The design team had to be creative to properly dimension the units to meet these requirements and [in terms of] Reaching ideas on how to encapsulate this space so that heat and cooling do not dissipate, “says Ngo.
The place before was the home of other campus structures, including several temporary modular buildings. As a result, the team had to fight with some existing utilities before creating the Slab-on Gradu Foundation, according to the NGO.
“Our initial concern was the abandoned utilities buried in the site,” he says. “But we had that our geotechnical engineer made some boring and soils were quite good.”
A large rainwater withholding system provided by advanced drainage systems based on Ohio Inc. —A high -performance thermoplastic pipe manufacturer, water management and drainage products – was added next to the building’s footprint.
The system created a large berm, which further restricted the amount of space available for the layout of materials and staging. Throughout the project, a delivery had to be used in time.
Tent structures with steel support systems and tissue coatings could later be removed to build a more permanent installation.
Courtesy of Powers Brown Architecture
Concrete nucleus
In the beginning, the team needed to focus on the concrete structure. The NGO says the team used the incline to help save money for George Mason and shorten the general construction calendar. The 12 panels were thrown to the site and rose in place with a crawl crane.
The team had to carefully design the blockade openings on concrete walls for behaviors, pipes and other public services. Due to the small footprint, only one crane could be used at the same time. As the panels were erected, steel framework followed behind, requiring wide coordination.
With the central structure in its place, the crews began to build the tents from the concrete walls. The fabric stretched through the frame and ratchet ribbons were used to strain the fabric. The crew added insulation and utilities to the walls, and then the second layer of tissue was stretched to close the system.
Despite a wide planning to comply with the aggressive calendar, the crews faced challenges. In the days of bad weather they made it difficult to progress throughout the construction of the concrete structure and the tents, forcing crews to work on weekends.
There were also delays in gaining power in the building that prevented the structure from conditioning.
“There was a lot of risk associated with this,” says Ngo. “In the past we had experience in installing drop ceilings in a non -power space, and ultimately everything was deformed and the roof had to be replaced. So we had this conversation with the university. This also contained land, cabinets and counters.”
As a result, the date of completion was moved from spring to August, in time for the arrival of students for the autumn semester, marking the activity of the Community Welfare Community as the first installation of the Campus adorned with the new logo of George Mason, a G and M was presented in April as part of the school’s reception campaign.
“If something personifies our students, our diversity, our rich heritage, our innovation, our spirit, is actually the green machine,” said Gregory Washington, president of the university, at the innovative ceremony of the project. “So having this entity has a focal point, a central piece, a meeting point, a rally point, it is probably one of the most important things we can do.”
The NGO says it understands the impact of a project like this on the campus. He graduated from the GMU with a Master in Civil Engineering in 2020, and the Community Welfare Construction project of activities is the first to be led as the head of the Hoar Construction project.
“It’s great to be able to build new things for college,” he says. “You can really see how reflective is the GMU about their community. They are building this for the band. They are thinking about the community. It’s not just another benefits center.”
