Brockman Hall is composed of two bars nestled between existing buildings

In the spring of 2008, we began design for Brockman Hall for Physics at Rice University in Houston, Texas. This 110,000 SF facility will house research, teaching, and office space for the Departments of Physics & Astronomy and Electrical & Computer Engineering. Nestled between existing buildings in the dense Science Quad, the building envelope respects the scale of the historic masonry vocabulary of the campus while extending it into a 21st century model for architecture and research at Rice. In this manner, lightness and transparency become the foil to weight and opacity. Further, as is common among other buildings on campus, subtle references to the building's program will be made with iconography incorporated into elements of the building skin.

The building's eight facades are designed as a series of layers that allow day light to filter through, while solar gain and glare are kept out and privacy for researchers is maintained. Each façade is uniquely tuned to its solar conditions and adjacency to other buildings, taking strong cues from the predominant proportions on campus while employing innovative materials appropriate to the site and building program. The most public façade on the north is a glass curtain wall with a continuous silk-screened Penrose pattern that helps the building recede into its surroundings. On the opposite side of the building, the south façade is a composition of colored aluminum composite cladding behind a sun screen of thin horizontal terracotta elements. The inner facades are entirely glass, and the east and west facades are fritted glass with thin aluminum sunshades.

The north bar has a landscaped loggia and a fritted glass curtain wall

The south bar has a terracotta sun screen and glass brick walls on the ground level

The University has placed the project on a "hypertrack" schedule, overlapping design and construction with the goal of completing the building in just 30 months. Given the unique building envelope and rapid schedule, the team endeavored to explore elements of the proposed building skin at full scale as early as possible in the design process. This methodology invariably became an essential tool for gathering decision-ready information to present to the project's Steering Committee for discussion and approval.

7'x8' mockup of the south façade constructed to evaluate scale, spacing, technical qualities, and color

We constructed several prototypes in our office, using both actual materials and facsimiles. The sun screen for the south façade was constructed to test the appearance of various materials behind the terra cotta elements, including iridescent-coated metal panels, painted metal panels, and cement board. The terracotta tubes in this mockup were simulated using painted high-density foam. A full scale mockup with real materials was later constructed at Admiral Glass in Houston.

Full scale 15' x 15' mockup at Admiral Glass in Houston

Hybrid glass and brick masonry wall prototypes of the ground level building skin

Hybrid glass and brick masonry walls clad the first story as a counterpoint to the solid walls of the adjacent buildings, their scale and proportion referring to the traditional masonry elements used throughout Rice's campus. We created a mockup of the wall in our shop to explore patterning, scale, and finishes. A larger mockup of the current design is under construction at the project site. Off-site fabrication of the glass masonry walls is under consideration.

Full-scale mockup of a portion of glazing for the north facade

The glass and Penrose frit pattern for the north façade were simulated with a laser-etched acrylic sheet to test scale and registration of the pattern.

2' x 2' mockup of glazing samples

Using 12" x 12" IGU samples provided by glazing vendors, the design team constructed boxes used to evaluate proposed curtain wall details, as well as the deployment of different types of glass, spandrel variations, and translucency. The boxes were staged outdoors and photographed in different orientations and conditions in order to provide a basis for discussion in subsequent design reviews.

Interior wood screen mockup

A long vertical wood screen has been proposed to provide shading in the main lecture space at Brockman Hall. Full-scale iterations of wood slats with varied spacing and depth were constructed in our shop and staged in front of other proposed materials for evaluation.

The collaborative design process between KieranTimberlake, Rice University, our contractors and manufacturers has been assisted and enabled by our iterative process of prototyping integrated elements of the building. In a project that employs innovative building strategies and has an aggressive design and construction schedule, it is critical to fully understand the full-scale impact of those strategies as early as possible.