A New Gateway

By K. Robert Wendel

New facilities dedicated to medicine and research are going up at the University of Arizona in Tucson.

Crews from the Tucson office of Gilbane Building Co. and their subcontractors are finishing up work on the new $22 million Drachman Hall this month. Drachman Hall is one of three new buildings being constructed south of the University Medical Center.

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Other projects include the $46 million chemistry building slated for a May completion by the Tucson office of general contractor Hensel Phelps Construction Co. and the $49 million Keating BIO5 building being constructed by Gilbane with plans for a February completion.

The Drachman Hall project began in April 2004. It's a three-story, 118,000-sq.-ft. classroom and office building with a steel frame and the traditional U of A red brick.

The project is named after Roy Drachman, a staunch supporter of the U of A."

"One of the mandates was to use the university brick," said architect Mark Kranz of
Phoenix-based SmithGroup. "We proposed a number of different materials, but at the end of the day, this project is sitting right next to five other brick buildings, so red brick it was."

The Tucson office of Sun Valley Masonry placed almost 300,000 units of the red brick in a running bond along with ground-faced block. Sun Valley will also install a granite flooring design.

The project proved complicated to scaffold because of the many tight spaces and openings.

"This scaffolding was intense," said Terry Rathbun, Sun Valley Masonry's Southern Arizona regional manager. "There are a lot of areas that go down through the building that we had to work around and there were a lot of tight spaces."

Tucson's Mountain Power wired the project with R.E. Lee Mechanical, also of Tucson, installing the mechanical systems. Each floor has its own mechanical suite and the project is supplied with chilled water from the university's central plant.

Plans call for the school of public health and the pharmacy school to share the building, which is divided into two sides. A two-story glass "bridge" connects the wings and creates the separate spaces. The bridge also provides conference space.

"You have two colleges with different cultures here, so the design is centered on getting these people to live together," Kranz said.

The new building will become the gateway to the campus north of Speedway

Boulevard. Plans call for a large courtyard with hardscape and landscape. The building is punctuated with zinc shades and zinc pop-out boxes that break the structure's massing. There is also extensive use of glass curtainwalls and windows for natural daylighting.

Although the building is not a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, designers are using the roof to capture water that will be used for plants around the building.

"We took all the roof drains and ran them down to the central courtyard for irrigation," said civil engineer Jason Mikkelsen of Phoenix-based Dibble Engineers.

The project sits on a 6-in. concrete slab, which is integrally colored with black stain.

Tucson's Parsons Steel erected approximately 1,500 tons of structural steel on the project, which incorporated exposed structural-steel stairs and accents.

"It's a unique design in that the columns are encased in the grade beam rather than sitting on footings," said Larry Nelson, Gilbane senior project manager.

Crews are milling off approximately 1/8 in. of the concrete slab to create a terrazzo-like effect. There are also other architectural touches.

"I think it's pretty impressive when you see a 2,000-lb. piece of steel hanging in the air for an accent feature," said Joe Parsons, vice president of Tucson's Parsons Steel.

"The steel is really heavy and stout, but I think the handrails are neat. I don't think there's another handrail system like it in Tucson."

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