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Taking the LEED
Heimbold Visual Arts Center to
Feature Green Elements
by Amy S. Choi
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In
addition to meeting LEED standards - the project has
a silver rating - it had to meet aesthetic concerns.
Parts of the development are built into the adjacent
hill, and the primary materials of stone, wood, zinc
and glass reflected the materials of the surrounding
buildings.
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It had a tight budget, a LEED certification and an owner
that put a tree at the top of the priority list, but F.J.
Sciame Construction Co. Inc. doesn't have an unkind word to
say about the process of developing the new arts center at
Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, N.Y.
"The success of this project is in direct correlation
to the team that's involved," said Marc Heiman, vice
president of Sciame, which is based in New York, N.Y., and
project executive of the Heimbold Visual Arts Center. "The
owner set the tone of total collaboration, of everybody working
together and being creative together. Nobody was ever nickel-and-diming
or working just for themselves."
The job should be completed in June.
The constraints of the 61,000-sq.-ft. project certainly could
have led to tensions, but instead, finding solutions to the
obstacles became areas where each part of the project team
could shine.
Cost was one concern. Sarah Lawrence originally bid the project
out as a lump-sum bid, but all of the bids came in with $24
million price tags, $4 million above its budget. The school
then engaged Sciame, which undertook a six-week value-engineering
period and found a way to meet the $20 million figure necessary,
even though the building had the added complexities of needing
to meet LEED sustainability certifications.
The most critical element of the value engineering process,
was maintaining the aesthetic and environmentally conscious
qualities of the building, a brainchild of Polshek Partnership
Architects of New York, N.Y. As a Polshek building, the new
arts center aesthetically integrates into the topography of
the campus. Parts of the development are built into the adjacent
hill, and the primary materials of stone, wood, zinc and glass
reflected the materials of the surrounding buildings, including
the President's House and Slonim.
To further integrate the new center into campus life, the
building also features skylights and open spaces in between
the levels where passers-by can view artists at work.
Because the Heimbold center had to meet green building standards
as well as aesthetic ones - it currently has a silver rating
- the entire construction process had to be carefully monitored.
That included ensuring that all of the trades used environmentally
safe products and materials and guaranteeing that all of the
waste created by the site was disposed of safely by an approved
debris removal company.
Not only did the project team need to ensure that the new
building it created was environmentally responsible, but it
also made it a top priority to protect the surrounding landscape.
"Given the philosophy of Sarah Lawrence, everything
possible was done to preserve the trees, to the extent that
the whole building was designed around one of the trees,"
Heiman said.
On the Kimball Avenue side of the property, adjacent to one
of the studio spaces, the building complements an ancient
tree by jogging inward. In the past two years since the groundbreaking,
the project team has trimmed and pruned the roots, developing
an entire shoring and underpinning system to protect and support
the roots.
"One false move and it could have been over for the
tree," Heiman said. "We're still handling it with
kid gloves and monitoring it very carefully to make sure that
it will survive all of the heavy construction."
He added that despite the trees and other obstacles, "We
were lucky that the owner was very open and had faith in us
that we would be able to execute what they really wanted without
compromising the quality of each element. Too many times I
see owners or owners' reps setting a tone that is counterproductive.
It's a tough enough industry given all of the variables, but
if everybody could kick off each project realizing that they
have the same common goals and interests, then the process
will work."
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