Built in 1968, the Andrew G. Clark building has long been the most busy building on the State University Campus of Colorado (CSU), with more than 95% of the school students who held a class during their college career. Despite being described as a building, it has always been three interconnected structures that cover 250,000 square meters, with the wings of Clark A and Clark C connected by the bridges of Clark B.
After more than 50 years of intense use, Clark B appeared more and more outdated in the most recent buildings on the CSU campus, and their office bridges were demolished to make room for an updated four -storey building between wings A and C.
Haselden Construction and Hord Coplan Macht (HCM), based on colo. Construction officially began in the fall of 2024 with a daily average crew of 100.
Unlike the old Clark B building, which lacked public spaces for students to abandon among classes, the new structure will have numerous collaborative areas and study rooms.
Picture of courtesy Hord Coplan
The new Clark B will have 120,000 square feet of classrooms, public space, offices and laboratories, with a design that emphasizes academic collaboration and functional mobility. The structure is steel, with a glass, stone and steel facade, and will have 15 classrooms ranging from 15 to 300 students. Following the reduction of Haselden’s HRS Restoration Services, a significant renovation of Clark a Continuous in parallel with the new construction of structure B.
Tracey Abel, supervisor of the CSU capital construction, says the new building was needed. “Although the Clark building has served well for the CSU for more than 50 years, it had received limited updates, it had industrial appearance and the basic interior layout was similar to labyrinth,” he says. In addition to obsolete students and teachers, “the intense use of the building and the large size combined to create multiple maintenance challenges” with increasing operating costs. “”
With the framework of the ongoing structural steel and the elevator and stairs nuclei in its place, the $ 136 million project is scheduled for completion in January 2027. “We are looking for our steel to be surpassed in the middle of summer, probably at the end of June … and it will probably sit in the middle of the roof and the land and many finishes after that,” says Jared Farrand.
Haselden plans to complete the steel structure in mid -2015, with a scheduled date for delivery of the project in early 2027.
Image Corteseseses Haselden Construction
Activation inside and out
The final design for Clark B evolved from an initial concept that requested three separate buildings, with a new building reserved for the wings, but not directly connected to them. Throughout an iterative design process, this vision returned to one with Clark B connecting the two wings.
Ryan Nichols, a senior associate from HCM in Denver, says that the initial concept of CSU of “multiple additions separating the wing A and the C wing in two different buildings” was significantly different from the final design.
A process of dissemination with users and stakeholders established the design team in a new course. “In conversations on how to bring a little heart and identity to these spaces, it made sense to keep it linked,” says Nichols. “Ultimately we sought to put this incorporation between [the A and C wings] and reconnect the buildings as they were. “”
“The biggest logistics challenge is like getting semis of material and cranes in a place that does not have accessible roads to the campus.”
‘Promed Farrand, Superintendent, Haselden
“When relating to students, teachers and staff, the team had a clearer view of the future needs of the College of Liberal Arts and other schools that used the space,” says Abel. “The goals were set to promote active and proposed learning spaces with more interdisciplinary learning opportunities. There was a decision to create a multitier classroom of 300 people with fixed tables that sat groups of six, different from a conference room.”
Clark B’s original building “didn’t really have a student space or anything like this out of the corridors,” says Nichols. “There were no places to stop, stay and endure -and therefore the building was really completely transient in terms of its occupants in any of these spaces.”
The solution involved the creation of “soft spaces and collaborative areas,” he adds. “We have many small rooms, individual study rooms and group rooms.”
The design links the Clark building and the adjoining green space, the Monfort quadrangle, with a balcony oriented to the east on the second floor. On the fourth floor, a west -oriented balcony with mountain views will provide another outdoor connection.
Abel says he sees the final plans as a good party for “the vernacular campus” of the refurbished buildings around the middle of the century, maintaining the historical character of the A.
The elevator and stairs were installed shortly after the lever in the fall of 2024.
Image Corteseseses Haselden Construction
Old and new integration
Beyond activation of friendly spaces for human beings in Clark B, the building is a functional conduit between the wings, but Nichols said that the wing wing plate with the C -wing floors was complicated, according to Nichols. “We had six feet apart to make it inside the B wing,” he says. “To try to create it as a unique building that flowed easily and accessible from one side to the other and had stairs and ramps in these locations to try to make the flow perfect were some of the great challenges.”
By calling the previous design “slightly confusing”, Nichols says that the new design eliminates these mobility problems. “The building travels more than 1,000 people in pretty easily passing periods. The existing building did not have many soft spaces, so what we did with the new design was really trying to take advantage of the circulation corridor that connected to and C as a place to allow some students to cook.”
Farrand says that the “mix of new and old” of the project has caused a hybrid approach to the measure. “We use all the new technology we can, but when you try to make a new building between two existing structures, you must leave behind and remove a line of rope only to check everything,” he says. “It is a combination of new technologies, firing the face of the building to see how it is in relation to the new structure and then drop a lead bob for verification.”
“We are trying to plan for the future to align with the energy goals of the campus.”
—Adam Acree, associate, cator, ruma & associates
The building, aimed at Leed Gold certification, also involves the integration of existing MEP infrastructure with new teams. New B building systems include hot water reheating of rooftop variable volume units and are included in wider campus systems and A. A.
“A wing A has obviously been the most difficult,” says Adam Acree, an associate engineer and mechanical with Cator, Ruma & Associattes, based on colo. “We do not completely renew it; we are replacing some systems, but it is a selective replacement. It is not a gut and a wholesale renewal.”
While most of the main equipment is being replaced, pipe distribution systems and behaviors are for the most part. “The unknown condition of the things we try to reuse is a problem,” says Acree. “Finding routes for a new distribution has also been difficult in this existing building.”
ACREE accredits the Haselden Construction Information Model (BIM) as a key to integrating systems. BIM coordination “has collected most of these problems, trying to put it in front before they really install anything. They are modeling it accurately.”
With the CSU that plans to move from a central steam plant to a low temperature hot water system, the flexibility has been key to the design of the MEP. “In both buildings A and B, we are trying to plan for the future to align with the energy goals of the campus,” says Acree. “We put empty pipes that are ready to go.”
The $ 136 million project encompasses a Clark reform adjacent to Wing, dating to the 1960’s.
Challenges and collaboration
The location of the site in the middle of a busy campus has also added a layer of complexity to the project. “Safety is always our highest priority and space is limited,” says Abel. “The change of class and knowing where the students are when they move materials is always at the forefront of the team’s mind.”
Farrand adds: “The largest logistics challenge is like putting semis of material and cranes in a place that has no roads accessible to the campus because the Clark building is surrounded only by pedestrian traffic.” To mitigate access problems, Haselden set up a road dedicated to subcontractors to bring materials to the building’s place.
The fact that the building is slightly above the degree has presented additional challenges. The entrance ramps were introduced inside so that the snow and ice would not hinder accessibility and the drainage system includes a rain garden to the north of the building along with the underground arrest and the quality water quality infrastructure at the west end of Monfort quadrangle.
Haselden and HCM, having united in various major projects in the CSU for the last 15 years, have dealt with worries and problems with “a lot of collaboration, many meetings”, says Farrand. “This is just a continuous topic for everything we do here.”
A potential renewal of Clark C on the horizon, Abel describes Haselden and HCM as “true commercial partners” with CSU. Companies are “maintaining the project during the schedule and within the budget, helping us to browse unforeseen impacts and still meet the programmatic needs,” he says.
