BAP: The Broad by ddutchr

STORY PROJECT DESIGN TEAM

ARCHITECT FIRM PROFILE

Diller Scofidio + Renfro Team: Elizabeth Diller, Principalin-Charge; Ricardo Scofidio and Charles Renfro, Principal Designers; Kevin Rice, Project Director; Team: Kumar Atre, Oskar Arnorsson, Ryan Botts, John Chow, Gerardo Ciprian, Robert Condon, Zachary Cooley, Charles Curran, Robert Donnelly, Eliza Higgins, Christopher Hillyard, Michael Hundsnurscher, Matthew Johnson, Robert Loken, Nkiru Mokwe, William Ngo, Matthew Ostrow, Haruka Saito, Daniel Sakai, Andrea Schelly, Anne-Rachel Schiffmann, Zoe Small, Quang Truong

Diller Scofidio + Renfro: The Diller Scofidio + Renfro design studio is not limited to the field of architecture, spanning urban design, installation art, multi-media performance, digital media, and print. Their work is centered on cultural and civic projects and aims to address the changing role of institutions and the future of cities. The Broad, a contemporary art museum, is a cultural and civic project that holds a collection of contemporary and postwar art pieces. The project addresses the future of cities, as it heavily incorporates sustainability and building performance/efficiency into its design. Some eco-conscious features include rooftop drains routed to street level gardens that filter runoff, high efficiency plumbing that reduces water use by 40%, and easy access to public transportation.

Gensler Team: Rob Jernigan, Principal-in-Charge; David Pakshong, Project Director; Wendi Gilbert, Project Architect; Team: Brianna Seabron, Nora Gordon, Greg Kromhout, Yasushi Ishida, Arpy Hatzikian, Marty Borko, Philippe Pare, Robyn Bisbee, Melanie McArtor, Patrice Hironimus, Valentin Lieu, Yupil Chon, Brenda Wentworth, Jae Rodriguez, Robert Garlipp, Jay Hardin, Alexis Denis, Ricardo Moura, Lauren Gropper, Steven Hergert, Pavlina Williams, Evangelique Zhao Client: Philanthropists Eli and Edythe Broad Manufacturers: POHL, Sika, GRACE, HAWS, LSI Industries, Litelab, Lucifer Lighting, Mitsubishi Electric, Moonlight Molds, Nulux, Sedak, Seele, Toto, Vista Paint, WE-EF, Willis Construction, Acor, Avlis-Haws, Hunter Douglas, Parex OmniCoat, ParexGroup, Seele / Willis Construction, Seele; Walters & Wolf Construction: MATT Construction, Santa Fe Springs, Calif. Structural Engineering: Nabih Youssef & Associates, Los Angeles, Calif. + Leslie E. Robertson Associates, R.L.L.P., New York, N.Y. Civil Engineering:KPFF Consulting Engineers, Los Angeles, Calif. Mechanical, Electrical, Plumbing, Fire Life Safety And Gallery:ARUP, Los Angeles, Calif. Lighting Engineers (Galleries): ARUP, London, U.K. Lighting Design: Tillotson Design, New York, N.Y.

Gensler: Gensler’s design philosophy focuses on transforming culture and experience through the built environment by developing spaces that inspire and engage users of the building.They are informed by behavioral research on how people use space, which played an integral role in realizing the Broad. Gensler used its expertise for the unique public spaces, archive and conservation rooms, photography cold storage, and exhibit fabrication shops.

Vertical Transportation: Lerch Bates, La Crescenta, Calif. Collection Storage: Solomon + Bauer, Watertown, Mass. Leadership: Eli and Edythe Broad, Founders + Joanne Heyler, Founding Director

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PROJECT BACKGROUND

The project, consisting of 2 floors of gallery spaces spanning over 120,000 square feet was commissioned in 2011 and finally opened its doors for the public on the 19th of September 2015 on Grand Avenue in downtown Los Angeles, right across the street from the Walt Disney Concert Hall. It was designed with the innovative “veil-and- vault” concept which included a parametric facade as its veil and a heavy opaque mass as its vault. The Broad’s compound also includes a 24000 square foot public plaza which was designed in collaboration with Hood Design Studio Inc. Along with additions in the street-scape and enhanced pedestrian access along Grand Avenue. It has welcomed more than 1.7 million visitors so far and continues to be the centerpiece of postwar and contemporary art not just in Los Angeles but across the world. The clients of the project were Eli Broad and his wife Edythe, who are renowned business leaders who built two Fortune 500 companies from the ground up over a five-decade career in business. They envisioned the Broad to be built for the public as a showcase for the Broad’s extensive art collection and also to serve as The Eli and Edithe Broad Foundation and The Broad Art Foundation’s headquarters’ worldwide lending library.

REFLECTION The Broad Museum in Los Angeles is an example of a museum that very receptively achieves an interesting form, texture and experience which tends to the requirements of the client and the public outlook of the project, underlining how the project lies very conceptually grounded to the idea of the veil and the vault. Starting from the intricately designed and simply realized porous GFRC facade system which adds to the external coral-like texture of the building, to the intimate and more private vault spaces, this project really plays with the idea of how light finds its way into the building and the intentionality behind the light’s presence in that space. For example, the building’s outer facade’s apertures were designed to delicately allow light inside so as to not enter the art galleries directly or harshly in order to not disturb the artwork or the relationship between the visitor and the artwork. The spaces in the museum can be divided into two major types: first one being storage spaces and a conference room, and the second one being the publicly accessible open plan museum exhibition spaces. It was interesting for us to discover how the vault feeds into the experiential aspect of the project to create a really interesting interstitial space which makes the approach to the top level gallery space very interesting. We have to confess however that it was hard finding accurate data and reliable sources of data for this project, especially as we started working into the structural, mechanical and even representational details of the project, which was quite surprising considering The public nature and the fame this museum had. However, it was still a great exploration where we explored the underpinning concepts while also making up for the missing blanks along the way.

Photo Credits: 1. https://dsrny.com/?index=true&search=o&section=studio 2. https://www.gensler.com/expertise/brand-design 3. Iwan Baan 4. https://www.thebroad.org 5. https://www.archdaily.com

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SITE CLIMATE

01_ temperature and sun path

02_ windrose

03_ psychometric chart

The main design driver out of the three factors in climate was mainly to maintain internal heat gains and introduce shading methods to prevent the harsh Los Angeles sun from entering the veiled spaces and damaging the well-preserved art collection. Just the right amount of sun was allowed for creating a conducive experience in both light and temperature for the visitor as well.

CONTEXT

01_ acoustic influences

03_ pedestrian transportation

07_ an artistic cultural fabric as part of an upcoming urban center 3

02_ vehicular traffic The site of The Broad lies in a very culturally vibrant part of DTLA. It is right across the street from Frank Gehry’s Walt Disney Concert Hall. The Broad’s exterior facade was to contrast the smooth, shiny texture of the concert hall’s facade using porosity and roughness as a design answer. There was also the idea of connecting it within the cultural tissue of prominent centers of art and music such as MOCA, Colburn School and the Dorothy Chandler Pavillion ,turning it into a complete and connected experience for a visitor. The idea behind this is to form a designated urban centre into DTLA’s character.

SITE SITE STUDY

SCALE: 1’=50’-0” N

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25’

50’

100’

The “vault” plays a key role in shaping the museum’s threshold experience from entry to exit. Its heavy opaque mass hovers above the users of the space. The “vault” overhangs above the entrances, drawing visitors into the lobby. The southwest side of the building has a 24,000 sf plaza with greenscape and circulation paths that lead into the museum and out onto the street. The plaza surfaces include decomposed granite, etched concrete paving, Saint Augustine grass lawn and flowering groundcover. The groundscape material in the lot and the sidewalk material are both concrete, creating a smooth transition from the public to the private realm. Moreover, there are widened sidewalks on the western side of Grand Avenue which encourage pedestrian use, improve safety, and calm traffic.

REGIONAL RESOURCES Source of Water

Sewage Routes

% of Imported Water

The water in Downtown Los Angeles is imported from the Los Angeles Aqueduct, which is a 233 mile-long water conveyance system that transports water from the Mono Basin and Owens Valley. The utility company of is the Los Angeles Department of Water & Power, and the closest power plant to the museum is the LA Civic Center. The Hyperion Treatment Plant treats the sewage in Downtown LA. After entering the plant, the raw sewage undergoes preliminary treatment, where large solids are removed. After leaving the headworks, the sludge is separated from the water. Any waste that does not sink to the bottom of the tanks is skimmed from the surface. The bacteria rich wastewater is then broken down and clarified. Most of the effluent is then pumped through a five-mile long pipeline that empties into the Santa Monica Bay. The remainder is further processed at the West Basin Water Recycling Plant in El Segundo to provide water for industrial applications and landscape irrigation. Photo Credits: 1. https://dsrny.com/?index=true&search=o&section=studio 2. https://pw.lacounty.gov/smd/sewernetwork/ 3. https://www.waterhub.ucla.edu/watersources.html

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SPACE FLOOR PLANS A

3 4 5

first floor 0

SECTION

A 32’

second floor 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

section A

lobby gallery space archive room cold room mechanical room preparation room conference room office gallery space

STRUCTURE DIGITAL

ANALOG

NARRATIVE The 24,000-square-foot plaza is supported by 18 pre-cast concrete or steel columns, seven girders and seven secondary beams made up of composite pre-cast and reinforced concrete or steel over GTK Way. The buildings lateral system is concrete shear walls with mild reinforced concrete slabs and columns for the lower levels. The upper museum levels are a mix of post tensioned slabs, steel composite beams, and mild reinforced concrete slabs. The roof includes five 190-foot steel girders weighing approximately 70 tons each. The façade is made of thin GFRC panels on a curtain wall framing system. The foundation for this building are individual footings, which are one of the most simple and common types of foundations. These are used when the load of the building is carried by columns. Usually, each column will have its own footing. The footing is just a square or rectangular pad of concrete on which the column sits. 6

SKIN RHINO MODEL

EUI DATA

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PHYSICAL MODEL

CIRCULATION MECHANICAL SYSTEMS There are a number of passive systems being utilized to maintain human and thermal comfort and health. The “veil,” an airy, honeycomb-like structure that spans across the gallery provides filtered natural daylight and acts as an external shading device. The “veil-and-vault” concept allows the mechanical systems to be in a heavy opaque mass that is always in view and not concealed. The top floor gallery is illuminated by expansive north-facing skylight clerestories and a fully-shaded glazed east wall. Arup assisted with the Building Information Modeling (BIM) of the building services in the roof and lobby ceilings, which allowed for seamless integration of sprinklers, sensors, shading devices, conduit, and electric lighting into the architectural aesthetic. In addition, the building utilizes daylight harvesting, occupancy-based control of lighting, variable frequency drives on large HVAC motors, demand control ventilation, carbon monoxide control of garage fans, and the use of low-energy ultrasonic humidifiers. Utilizing variable frequency drives (VFDs) is an effective way to improve energy efficiency. In a VFDequipped system, the VFD adjusts the speed of one or more motors based on the system load requirements and operation schedule, resulting in a dramatic cut in energy consumption. The building’s energy use, projected to be lower than the current California Energy Code requirements by at least 20%, assisted in the goal of achieving a LEED Gold rating. DEMAND CONTROL VENTILATION

The Plant

OUTSIDE AIR

VFD & HVAC 10% OCCUPIED

50% OCCUPIED

80% OCCUPIED Adjust fresh-air intake based on occupancy Ventilation demand is determined by CO2 level (ppm) 9

MECHANICAL DISTRIBUTION AND DELIVERY

MECHANICAL ROOM

CIRCULATION

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Stairs Elevators Exit Path

The Broad Museum depends on an air based system for heating, ventilation, and air conditioning. It is the active system that provides required air and improved thermal conditions to support human health. In terms of the building form and organization, the Broad does not have narrow sections and there aren’t many voids. Moreover, all the active mechanical systems are concealed, which can be seen in the picture above. 10

INTEGRATED SITE-STRUCTURE-SYSTEMS DIAGRAM The structural engineer on record for this project was Nabih Youssef & Associates, Los Angeles, California. The structure of this building was realized primarily through concrete. They came up with an ingenious method for the structural footing which was a combination of spread footings and belled caissons which was possibly to minimize structural damage in more load bearing areas and also spread the load evenly into the soil. The belled caissons may have been used for achieving the same effect of spread footings but with the added advantage in terms of prefabricating and then placing it on site instead of on-site concrete form-work in places where it would have been inconvenient to bring in conventional spread footing. Including the parking structure, the museum stands 110 feet tall with 6 stories. Typical floors are two way concrete slabs which sit on concrete columns which are also supported by a drop slab on every level to prevent the punching effect. The lateral framing used in the building is special reinforced concrete shear walls along with long perimeter walls on the north and south sides of the building and short buttressing walls in the opposite direction.

GFRC Paneling

Glass Paneling

Reinforced Concrete Structure Demand Control Ventilation

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