PROJECT SITE
Shelby Hall at The University of Alabama
Tuscaloosa, Alabama

POSITION
Project Manager Assistant / Contract Administrator Assistant

FIRM
HO+K, Inc.

PROJECT STATISTICS
Area = 227,000 SF

DESCRIPTION

This new three story, 227,000 SF facility represents the University of Alabama’s directive to construct a “State-of the-Art” Interdisciplinary Science Building.  As a cornerstone for the University, a new 17-acre Bioscience Complex, the facility will house graduate research activities for the Department of Chemistry, related ID research programs, and upper-level undergraduate and graduate chemistry instruction.

The design for the IDSB and its surrounding landscape evoke the memory of the original University plan from 1831 and the architecture of William Nichols, but also provides the programmatic functions of a modern academic research and teaching facility.  Through carefully measured gestures the building employs the classical proportions and orders of the architecture of Palladio, and the composition and materials of the American Federalist period.

The building, five volumes arranged as a pentagon, is designed to offer expansive views from, and bring natural light into the research, teaching, and administrative spaces.  The structure occupies three floors and a mechanical penthouse.  The building is divided vertically in its programmatic functions and horizontally in its public orientations.

The penthouse levels are dedicated to mechanical equipment with the primary levels comprised of research, administration, and teaching facilities.  The ground level accommodates the building loading docks, and additional mechanical and electrical rooms.  The research environment, ID facilities, instructional areas, and spaces are designed to promote interaction; key to supporting the facility’s mission of multidisciplinary education and research.  Lecture halls, classrooms, and instructional labs are designed to take advantage of the latest technology and instructional philosophy.

Anchored with a rotunda and crowned with a dome rising eighty feet above its surroundings, the building will be a landmark silhouette on the Alabama skyline.  Clad in a crisply detailed skin of stone, brick, metal, and glass, the building’s deeply articulated geometry reflects and captures light, generating a series if highlights and shadows along its facades.

I was specifically assigned to review shop drawings, answer questions from the field, make site visits, and assist the Project Manager on a daily basis.