At the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center (CCHMC) Parking Garage, no two sides are exactly alike. A contrast of flat panels and undulating steel mesh ribbons chase vertically and horizontally around the structure. Add the play of sunlight and shadow during the day and various sun angles throughout the seasons, and the building takes on a vibrant identity. Cincinnati-based DNK Architects Inc. used steel, light and texture to activate the unique design, gaining inspiration from the surrounding community.
The CCHMC campus lies in Avondale, one of Cincinnati’s oldest neighborhoods. English and German immigrants founded Avondale in mid-19th century and used Western European forms and multi-colored brick to build the district. Over time, the neighborhood became home to a predominantly African-American population.
Rather than try to produce architecture that mimicks the environment, DNK Architects sought a form that would interact with it. “We looked at African-American influences on American culture and found that braiding and weaving were among them. This gave us symbology we could draw upon,” remarks Raff Tomassian, a designer with DNK Architects. “We extended that to a metaphor of weaving the institutional and residential aspects of the neighborhood together.”
Park Place
The architects immediately looked at stainless steel mesh as their medium because it is durable, self-cleaning and well-suited to the project’s design goals. They opted for marine-grade 316 steel alloy to withstand the drastic temperature differentials that occur between Cincinnati’s summer and winter. Steel mesh was particularly intriguing as it has the capability to reveal or conceal what happens behind it.
The 6-story, 448,200-square-foot concrete parking garage holds 1,465 cars in a building footprint that is 320 feet long and 240 feet wide. Code requires a 2-foot crash barrier at the perimeter and a 3 1/2-foot-high guard rail for fall protection. To keep costs down, the typical solution is to meet both requirements by extending the concrete to the full 3 1/2-foot height. DNK decided to keep the concrete crash barrier low and provide fall protection with the steel mesh panels. The mesh opens the perimeter of the building, adds visual interest and allows daylight to penetrate deeper into the floor plates.
Wanting to subvert the orthogonal structure and undermine the building’s massive scale to better respond to the neighborhood, DNK designed the façades with two cladding systems: one flat and one undulating. “We knew that the repetition of a structural bay–even if it was as unique as basket weave–would still give the impression of a single consistent gesture. So we used the mesh in all its different capacities to animate the structure,” Tomassian explains.
Nearly one acre of stainless steel mesh covers the project. Miles of wire are woven into spirals and assembled by hand into mesh panels. A varying combination of flat mesh scrim and basket weave panels covers each façade. When the two systems appear together, the transitions occur on a diagonal axis. On both systems, the mesh is tensioned between a support system of rolled galvanized tubes with a brushed stainless steel covering. On the ribbon system, the mesh is tensioned between a support system of rolled galvanized tubes with a specialty stainless steel bracket at approximately 6 inches on center. On the flat scrim, the mesh attaches to brushed stainless steel tubes by entering through cut slots. A rod then is inserted and weaves through the wire to secure it.
Matt O’Connell, product engineering manager at Cambridge, Md., steel manufacturer Cambridge Architectural was involved with the design. “Stainless steel mesh is flexible, which allowed us to follow the contours of the curved steel tubes, but if you tension steel mesh on a curve incorrectly it can look faceted,” he explains. “We wanted to maintain a nice flowing undulation, so the attachments played a very important role. In the end, a simple solution provided clean execution.”
Dream Weaver
Cambridge Architectural joined the project during schematic design and participated in an intense collaboration with DNK. Together they virtually explored the systems with 3-D modeling and constructed a series of full-scale mockups onsite to troubleshoot obstacles. Noblesville, Ind.-based installer ProClad created the steel supports and worked closely with the team to develop cladding systems and attachments that maintain a smooth appearance.
The flat scrim is composed of large expanses of evenly sized small meshed spirals. The panels attach to the structure with a sequence of spring-loaded brackets that bolt directly into the concrete. The steel tubes and mesh obscure the brackets, which support the panels 4 inches outside the façade plane of the garage.
The basket weave consists of 5 1/2-foot-wide horizontal and 4 1/2-foot vertical ribbons that undulate and crisscross with a 2-foot amplitude. On these panels, the wire fabric is woven with one large spiral stripe surrounded by a series of smaller spirals. The mesh pattern runs with the direction of each ribbon, which highlights the interplay between the horizontal and vertical strands.
“Using a woven product to create a woven texture on the building is an ideal application for the ribbons and the contrast of flat and curved panels highlights the textural differences,” O’Connell says.
The result is both translucent and opaque depending on the light. In addition to daylight animating the façade, lights can be positioned to create different effects at night. On the sunlit sides of the building, the geometry of the mesh itself reflects light back inside the garage to increase illumination. The designers also wrapped the stair and elevator towers in glass and anodized aluminum infill panels to further articulate the structure.
Parking garages often are seen as the quintessential unwanted child of the built environment, but this design elevates the form to achieve architectural interest in its own right. The proactive approach of engaging the fabricators and installers early in the process and using digital data exchange allowed the finished product to be constructed without any issues in the field. Much of the fabrication was handled in the shop, which expedited onsite installation. By digitally designing 95 percent of the work and eliminating requests for information and questions during installation, the team was able to deliver the highly customized design within a reasonable parking garage budget.
“Through very rigorous analysis, we were able to keep our unit cost per parking space at $16,500, which is average for this area,” Tomassian says. “We have a conviction that you can do cutting-edge design without needing a cutting-edge budget, and this project validates that.”
- KJ Fields writes about architecture and sustainability from Portland, Ore.