COVER STORY
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BY RACHEL CALAFELL
Designing Outside the CONCRETE
BOX
R
epurposing existing structures, especially those made of concrete, has proven popular of late as a means to cost-effectively develop creative space, shorten construction schedules, and reduce the impact on the environment. While the former two are well-known strategies, the latter typically involves the reduction of embodied carbon. Emissions associated with extracting and installing new materials are reduced as well as the amount of waste produced during demolition. In 2017, Rice Management Company, stewards of the Rice
University endowment, purchased the remaining years of a 99-year lease for a former Sears department store in Houston’s Midtown. The goal was to repurpose the existing structure into a collaborative technology innovation hub for Houston’s entrepreneurial, corporate, and academic communities. The repurposed structure would be known as The Ion. However, repurposing the standalone “concrete box” while maintaining its original character presented numerous engineering challenges. “The original building was a dark box,” says
Dennis Wittry, managing principal at Walter P Moore. “To make the building inviting to commercial tenants, bringing daylight into the space was critical. The original scope of work anticipated using punched windows to bring in nominal daylight into the space while minimizing demolition of the exterior concrete walls that were serving as the primarily lateral system for the building.” The final solution involved a more significant extent of demolition both on the building exterior and interior. Constructed in 1939, with
G. Lyon Photography
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JANUARY 2022
www.ForConstructionPros.com/Concrete
12/28/21 9:30 AM