Sustainable Art School Extension using Timber as a Structural and Design Material
As part of the Robert Gordon University Campus, the Gray’s School of Art building sits prominently above the river Dee since its construction in the 1960s. Inspired by the modernist works of Mies van der Rohe it symbolises the futuristic approach to art education in the north-east of Scotland. Now 60 years later we got the task as Architectural Technology students to design and detail an extensions to fit into the new environmental concept of the campus in this theoretical exercise.
A design statement was first developed in teamwork based on the ‘clients’ requirements for an environmentally suitable timber design. This design statement was then developed further by each group member to create individual designs for the final project presentation.
For the building structure I chose a system consisting of Glulam Columns and prefabricated hybrid Concrete and Glulam floor elements (See Isometric Diagram next to the text). These hybrid elements were originally designed by the Austrian Architecture firm HK Architekten, a leading office in Timber Building Design, which reduces the use of concrete by replacing parts of the floor with Glulam beams with just a small top layer of concrete.
As the building follows the rectangular form of the old Gray’s School of Art building it was easy to integrate these rectangular hybrid elements into the design. Even the roof lights are made to fit this grid. Inside of the building there are four open plan studio spaces, two on the east and two on the west side which are connected with an open atrium in the middle connecting the two sides and the two levels together. In the top level there are also individual offices spaces present for teaching staff towards the south.
The end presentation was created with the use of AutoCad, Affinity Photo, Affinity Publisher and Revit Renders.
