UMass BRUT Community

Permanent URI for this collection

https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14394/54613

Browse

Taming the Brut: Education, Conservation and Advocacy
(2023-06-09) Pavlova-Gillham, Ludmilla D.; McCoy, Chandler; Carroon, Jean; Corey Freed, Eric
Is Brutalism part of your architectural biography? Midcentury public concrete buildings are easy to dislike, are demolished at an increasing rate, and comprise hundreds of millions of GSF . Join a panel of experts to discover how the conservation and adaptation of these “Bruts” is a principal strategy for climate action. Explore innovative solutions for Brutalist building reuse and conservation as part of a carbon zero initiative, learn how to develop an effective marketing and advocacy campaign for historic preservation, and learn why such advocacy matters for a circular economy and for the next generation of architects in practice. LEARNING OBJECTIVES 1. Discuss the historical context and current perceptions (both positive and negative) of midcentury modern and Brutalist public architecture, and articulate methods for determining architectural significance to owners and the public. 2. Make the case for existing building renovation and historic preservation in the context of climate change and the circular economy. 3. Explore new methods for designing, justifying, and implementing net-zero energy and zero carbon approaches in existing buildings. 4. Identify key elements of a successful marketing, sustainability, and conservation education campaign that engages design and construction consultants, owners, public architects and administrators, community stakeholders, and the public.
Brutalist Structures – Polychlorinated Biphenyls
(2021-10-23) Wolejko, Theresa
Until they were banned by the Federal Government in 1978, Polychlorinated Biphenyls or PCBs, were used extensively as sealants in Brutalist structures across the United States. As a result, these hazardous chemical compounds still reside in concrete buildings and present a danger to those looking to clean or renovate Brutalist structures. This talk explains the problems the University of Massachusetts Amherst has faced in dealing with PCBs over the last couple of decades and recommends some best practices for owners, designers, builders working on midcentury buildings which are suspected to contain these dangerous chemicals.
Concrete Conservation Strategies and Repair
(2021-10-23) Gaudette, Paul
Drawing on the speaker's many years in the field, this talk gives a comprehensive overview of concrete conservation. Beginning with the goals and approaches to conserving concrete, the talk then covers common protection systems, petrographic and chemical studies, and the design of mixes used in repairs. In order to demonstrate these techniques, two case studies are examined, including a Brutalist building and building with architectural precast. The talk ends with some recommendations on how to best approach cleaning and conservation of historic concrete buildings.
Concrete Diagnostics & Assessment
(2021-10-23) Schuller, Michael
The process of repairing Brutalist architecture begins with diagnosis and assessment of the material conditions of these buildings. This talk focuses on the processes that engineers undertake in order to document and access historic concrete before conservators and designers can form a plan to save such buildings. The speaker gives insight into the diagnostic techniques, such a visual assessment, nondestructive evaluation, sounding, moisture and metal detection, and chemical analysis.
UMass Dartmouth Science and Engineering (SENG) Building Systems Upgrades Project
(2021-10-23) Cornelius, Jillian
Although UMass Dartmouth's Science and Engineering Building has long been viewed as an architectural treasure, its aging interior and structure have presented some challenges to users nearly 50 years after it opened. This talk examines Ellenzweig's extensive retrofitting of the UMass Dartmouth SENG building for accessibility, a new envelope, updated MEP, and fire-safety measures. After looking at the design phase and interactions with the Mass Historic Commission, the talk ends with an examination of the replacement of windows in the building.
Concrete Deterioration and Diagnosis
(2021-10-23) Bronski, Matthew B.
Built primarily in the 1960’s, mid-century modernist concrete buildings are now at the age when we regard many as historic or architecturally significant (and thus as deserving of careful restoration and stewardship), but also at an age where many now exhibit significant deterioration. In this presentation, Matthew Bronski describes the most common maladies and deterioration mechanisms that can befall exposed concrete facades, outlines investigative and diagnostic approaches, and discuss the pros and cons of different rehabilitation treatment options, and the importance of tailoring the treatment to the malady.
Towards Civic Brutalism
(2021-10-23) Abramson, Daniel
1960s Massachusetts was a Brutalist mecca, much of it with civic dimensions, mediating through architecture citizens' rights and identities. The expanded welfare state's administration in Massachusetts was consolidated in new buildings for federal, state, and municipal workers in Boston's Government Center, a top-down urban renewal process. Government Center's buildings, including Boston City Hall and the Massachusetts State Service Center, embodied Brutalist values of material integrity, monumentality, and abstraction. Little thought was given to the architecture's civic dimensions, how people would engage politically with each other and the state. Subsequently, City Hall Plaza functioned for decades as eastern Massachusetts' civic fairground, while also increasingly commercialized, rented for corporate events. Part of the State Service Center is presently being privatized for commercial development. And City Hall Plaza is being renovated from a regional fairground into a neighborhood park. Where does this Government Center civic Brutalism story lead us Moving Forward with UMass? Perhaps towards advocating for the continued public character of civic Brutalism against its privatization and domestication, and for architectural designs and processes to activate a an inclusive, empowered democratic citizenry, as it works, resides, and is educated o
Conserving Concrete in a Public University: A Case Study
(2021-10-23) Arato Gonçalves, Ana Paula
This talk presents the case study of the concrete repairs at the School of Architecture and Urbanism at the University of São Paulo (FAUUSP) in Brazil. This iconic exposed reinforced concrete building was designed by João Batista Vilanova Artigas and Carlos Cascaldi in 1961. The repair process from 2012 was critically evaluated by a research group from FAUUSP funded by a Keeping It Modern grant from the Getty Foundation with the goal of shifting the maintenance of the building towards a more conservation minded approach. This case study is analyzed through the lenses of the Conservation Principles for Concrete of Cultural Significance published by the Getty Conservation Institute in 2020. These conservation principles combine best practices in concrete repair and conservation approaches. The lessons from this case study relate to current challenges to conserving concrete in Brutalist buildings and speak to how education and research institutions can contribute to overcoming these challenges.
UMass Amherst Case Studies – Campus Center Plaza & Lederle Graduate Research Center
(2021-10-23) Hambrook, Elliott
This presentation discusses Gale’s recent experience with repair projects at two (2) brutalist structures on the Amherst Campus at UMass. A board-formed concrete retaining wall at the base of the Murray D. Lincoln Campus Center (Marcel Breuer, 1970) was tastefully modified, but retained, as part of a waterproofing replacement project, addressing water infiltration and improving sight lines across the Campus Center Plaza. The panelized precast concrete façades of the John W. Lederle Graduate Research Center (Campbell, Aldrich, & Nulty, 1969) received new exterior sealants, enlarged panel joints, PCB removal and encapsulation, supplemental panel anchorage, and a waterproof coating.
DCAMM and Capital Stewardship
(2021-10-23) Felton, Sarah
Created in 1980, the Division of Capital Asset Management and Maintenance (DCAMM) manages some 68 million square feet of building space for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. This talk focuses on some of the challenges DCAMM faces in managing these facilities at the state's higher education institutions where 74% of the building portfolio were built prior to 1981. After discussing the Commonwealth's priorities in Capital Investment, the talk concludes with a look at DCAMM-funded renovations to the Claire T. Carney Library and Science and Engineering Building at UMass Dartmouth.
Brutal Realities
(2021-10-23) Pasnik, Mark
This presentation examines the changing tide around the reception of Brutalism in the United States during the last decade, while questioning how that change will impact our treatment of concrete buildings in the future. As concrete modernism comes into more positive focus today, will attitudes toward the future of these buildings in the architecture and preservation communities readjust? Should such structures be preserved or conserved, adapted or transformed? And how important is it to be responsive to original intentions and elements of significance? A conservation management plan for Boston City Hall is presented as a case study in which careful management of change is rooted in an understanding of the structure’s intentions, history, and significance.
Humanizing the Brutalist Interior: Inspiration. Collaboration. Transformation
(2021-10-22) Saul, Leslie
This talk covers the process behind the design of the fabric and textiles that were added to UMass Dartmouth's iconic Claire T. Carney Library during a $48 million dollar renovation of the Paul Rudolph building, completed in 2012. Interior Designer, Leslie Saul, describes how she drew inspiration from both UMass Dartmouth's genesis as a textile college and Rudolph’s original color palette to create eye-catching interior furniture and carpets in order to humanize this particular Brutalist interior.
Humanizing Brutalism: Graphics to Identify, Inform, Orient, Interpret and Inspire
(2021-10-22) Perkins, Whitney
Despite the reputation of Brutalist architecture being somewhat cold and imposing, the original interiors of these buildings were often covered in brightly-colored signage. In the process of renovating Paul Rudolph's Claire T. Carney Library at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, designer Whitney Perkins drew upon the colors and graphics of the 1960s and 70s in order to construct a bold program of wayfinding, signage and tapestries for the building. This talk looks at some of the influences and processes involved in designing and fabricating this signage.
UMass Brut: Re-imagining the Plinth
(2021-10-22) Amodeo, John
Modeled on UVA’s Lawn, Paul Rudolph’s mid-century Brutalist UMass Dartmouth buildings march down both sides of a gently sloped great lawn following the grade with one exception, the Auditorium, which is raised above the quad’s lawn on a 6’ high plinth, accessed by monumental stairs underscoring the entire building. With its entries elusively tucked into the ends of the building, the Auditorium steps were ceremonial at best and vacant, functionless and windswept at worst. Evolving tastes, priorities and social behavior over subsequent decades, and even more recently, the pandemic, have made indoor/outdoor relationships, outdoor space, and universal access a top priority, thereby rendering these highly minimalist inaccessible and ceremonial plinths obsolete. In 2017, a massive steam tunnel replacement project required the demolition of the steps, offering an opportunity to implement a priority project of the recent Campus Vision Plan to activate the Auditorium steps. Landscape architect, John Amodeo, who worked on the Campus Vision Plan, will show how he used landscape design to re-imagine the UMass Dartmouth Auditorium’s plinth from the merely ceremonial to an activated place for students, faculty and staff to gather, socialize, learn and renew, while respecting the Rudolph legacy and preserving the Auditorium’s impressive stature.
Notes Towards a History of the Brutalist Landscape
(2021-10-22) Brown, Marisa Angell
When we talk about Brutalism, we are generally talking about architecture. Is there such a thing as the Brutalist landscape? If so, what defines it, and who are its practitioners? How does the Brutalist landscape navigate the relationship between plantings, hardscape and public art? What is it designed to do, and for whom? If the Brutalist landscape exists as a category, was it successful? Is the history of its public reception different from the reception of Brutalist architecture? This presentation lays out notes towards a history of the Brutalist landscape, considering the work of Bertrand Goldberg, M. Paul Friedberg, Lawrence Halprin and I.M. Pei in this context.
Teaching Brutalist Architecture on Campus
(2021-10-22) Brandt, Lydia
Modern architecture on campus--especially of the Brutalist variety--provides ample opportunities to introduce and analyze the history of twentieth-century architecture with college students. This talk presents strategies for documenting, teaching, and advocating with modern architecture on American college campuses using the speaker's work at the University of South Carolina as a case study.
Campus Sustainability
(2021-10-22) Pavlova-Gillham, Ludmilla
Sustainability at the UMass Amherst Campus is part of a long tradition of Sustainable Development and is driven by a century of policy, culminating in the latest efforts of the Massachusetts Commonwealth to plan for climate change and carbon neutrality. This presentation provides a summary of current initiatives and processes that are underway to reduce the UMass Amherst carbon footprint and to plan for a transition to renewable energy. It gives an overview of the sustainability and campus engagement resources that Campus Planning makes available to the public and its community of faculty and students, so that they can understand and study the campus physical environment as a living laboratory for the energy transition. The presentation also outlines the campus approach to conservation of historic buildings and landscapes, and underscores the important role that the renovation of mid-century modern buildings will play in addressing campus sustainability and improving the physical environment. A case study of the 2003 – 2006 upgrades to Herter Hall, designed by Colletti Brothers Architects and constructed in 1969, illustrates technical challenges related to phased renovation of mid-century windows and HVAC, as well as indoor air quality benefits associated with the modernization and conservation approach.
Lessons Learned from Personal Experience in Adaptive Reuse
(2021-10-22) Jackson, Blake
This presentation details themes, regarding sustainability, from three adaptive reuse projects of Brutalist and post-war Modernist structures, accentuating overlaps with sustainability, embodied carbon, preservation, densification, and urbanization – all hallmarks regarding the adaptive reuse of these buildings. The first project illustrates opportunities created by up-branding a 1970’s era Sheraton into a “new” W Hotel (Midtown, Atlanta), whereby the preservation of the concrete playfully juxtaposed new interior/exterior design elements. The second project looks at the transformation of a purpose-built newspaper headquarters into a “new” LEED/Fitwel certified commercial facility, which reknit previously separated neighborhoods into a pedestrian/transit-oriented destination, serving as a catalyst for future growth/density within a previously auto-centric community (Dorchester, MA). The third example explores the drafting of a Request for Proposals (RFP), which the City of Boston utilized to solicit bids to reimagine the Paul Rudolf designed Erich Lindemann Mental Health Center site, encouraging the adaption/preservation of the existing building as part of a larger complex and realization of the original vision for the site by the architect. In conclusion, the presentation addresses challenges and opportunities with adaptive reuse of buildings of this vintage, including thermal bridging, municipal decarbonization efforts, and efforts by professional organizations to curb embodied carbon.
Modern Heritage: Why it matters, and what GCI is doing to help conserve it
(2021-10-22) McCoy, Chandler
The Getty Conservation Institute entered the field of conserving modern heritage in 2013, with the establishment of its Conserving Modern Architecture Initiative (CMAI). The CMAI aims to advance the practice of conserving modern heritage and feels that the best way to retain and reuse modern buildings is by knowing how to maintain, repair and upgrade them, and does this by providing useful tools, case studies, and training to help promote this effort. There has recently been a wave of notable demolition cases which raises the question about the environmental impact of replacing existing buildings with new ones, with many concerned architects and journalists pushing back against the demolition of existing modern buildings. This lecture gives examples of some recent anti-demolition initiatives and also gives examples of how energy management can play a role in improving the efficiency and longevity of modern buildings. For the difficult challenge of conserving modern buildings, knowledge really is power, and knowing how to repair deterioration, to improve efficiency, and successfully adapt these buildings is the best way to conserve them.
Approaches to Renewing Brutalist-Era Lab Buildings
(2021-10-22) Caroon, Jean
Given the immense amount of embodied carbon that mid-century Brutalist structures represent, we must redirect our focus from demolishing these concrete structures to renovating them to fit our needs in the 21st century. Higher education laboratory buildings from the 1960s and 1970s are a particularly challenging type of facility. This talk describes the work that Boston architecture firm Goody Clancy has recently undertaken in renovating over 1 million square feet of lab building space. The talk not only covers specific retrofits and envelope improvements to science buildings, such as the Gant Science Complex at the University of Connecticut in Storrs, but also the large importance that renovating Brutalist buildings has on climate action for adaptation, sustainability and carbon mitigation.

Browse

Recent Submissions