Saturday, August 6, 2011

A Rhapsody in Reynobond®: Oberlin College's New Jazz Building Clad in Alcoa Architectural Aluminum Panels



The Bertram and Judith Kohl Building, a virtual rhapsody in Alcoa's Reynobond aluminum composite material (ACM), has applied to become the first Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Gold certified music conservatory in the U.S.

The $24 million, three-story, 37,000-square-foot structure is the new home for the Jazz Studies Program at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music in Oberlin, Ohio. It is composed of three basic elements: an aluminum exterior, which wraps and encloses the programmatic elements; openings created by cutting and peeling away the aluminum composite material shell; and an abundance of daylight streaming into the building.

"From the beginning, we planned to clad the exterior in aluminum," said Lead Project Designer Jonathan C. Kurtz, AIA, of architectural firm Westlake Reed Leskosky, Cleveland. "It was a natural choice as the City of Oberlin sits above one of the largest deposits of bauxite ore in the country. And it was here, in 1886, that Charles Martin Hall, an Oberlin alumni and one of the founders of Alcoa, developed the cost-efficient process for obtaining aluminum from aluminum oxide that brought aluminum into widespread use."

Upon his success, Hall became a great benefactor to his alma mater. The Tappan Square property, on which the Kohl Building now stands, was just one of his generous gifts to the school.

Alcoa ACM panels in a brushed aluminum finish were used for the exterior walls and an anodic clear finish of the Reynobond material was used for the soffits of the building. Color was used to tie the new conservatory building to the existing campus designed in the 1960s by noted architect, Minoru Yamaski.

Constructed of pre-cast concrete with a finish that's almost opalescent, the Yamaski buildings appear to transform under different light. To mimic the dynamics of the surface, Alcoa worked with cladding manufacturer Riverside Group of Windsor, Canada, to develop a custom finish for the Alcoa panel that also appears to transform as the light changes.

The panel is further accented by the use of Brazilian Ipé hardwood siding at the entrance to add material texture. The wood, harvested from a sustainable forest, will weather naturally to a silver color that ties it to the aluminum and creates a coherent vernacular for the campus.

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