Fairfield, CT
Sacred Heart University, Martire Business & Communication Center
Scope/Solutions
The Frank and Marisa Martire Business & Communications Center is home to the College of Business and Department of Communications and Media Studies. The design highlights its innovative facilities, including a striking lecture hall and gathering space, an active trading floor, multimedia classrooms, a motion picture and animation lab, two television studios, and a radio station. SGH designed the structure and consulted on the enclosure for the building with a 100-year service life.
SGH designed the three-story structure with a partially below-grade level to meet the town’s height restrictions. Highlights of our structural design include:
- Steel framing with braced frames in stair/elevator cores for flexibility
- Parking below a hardscaped plaza constructed as a two-way, cast-in-place concrete slab designed for 3 ft of soil and a fire truck
- Copper-clad grand arch, seeming to float over the building, supported by a steel exoskeleton thermally isolated from conditioned space
- Wood-clad ellipse formed by steel angles hung from the lecture hall roof
- A grand stair with standard treads and double-height treads serving as stadium seating looking out into the atrium
- Customized framing to support three conical skylights above the atrium
- Bolted relieving angles with thermal isolation and slip-critical connections providing for continuous air/vapor barriers and adjustability
- Thermally-isolated, stainless steel framing for a cantilevered glass canopy
Highlights of our building enclosure consulting services include the following:
- Evaluated durability considering the 100-year service life
- Developed concepts for cladding details
- Observed performance testing of as-built building enclosure systems and developed remedial details as necessary
- Metal stud parapet designed to cantilever off the roof allowed for a continuous air and vapor barrier under the parapet
Project Summary
2015
Award
Key team members
