College of Engineering – Chicago

New 125,000 sq ft classroom building for the College of Engineering. The design of the building focuses on providing a collaborative and flexible educational experience, while highlighting the building systems as a teaching tool. In this manner the structure becomes part of the architecture – the majority of the steel structure is exposed, and done so in a meaningful way.

Several unique and highly coordinated structural features were utilized, including exposed AESS steel members and connections, exposed feature braced frames with gusset plates shaped to illustrate load flow, feature beams in the ceiling of the auditorium with penetration geometry determined by material optimization, and polished concrete floors and exposed concrete walls.

Fire engineering studies were conducted to eliminate fireproofing requirements for the majority of the steel floor framing. The University mandated the use of brick in the façade – we took this requirement to heart and performed significant research into using brick as part of the structural system; these efforts resulted in using structural brick in the façade, with a design that eliminated all joints and shelf angles.