An Academic and Social Hub

An addition to to Alan Magee Scaife Hall at the University of Pittsburgh employs extensive amounts use of transparent glazing to create an open and inviting floor plan that facilitates a feeling of community among students and staff at the univerity's medical school.

The seven-story addition to the medical school building includes several updated lecture halls, labs and classrooms. It also includes team-based learning and small group rooms as well as an entire floor dedicated to medical students. This floor is meant for students to congregate, study and build community.

MCF Architecture, the architect of record for the addition, says the building serves the university’s 150 medical students as both an academic building and a social hub. A monumental stairwell activates the space, aiding the social hub goals by contributing “bright, modern spaces intended for student interaction.”

The transparent glazing in the facility is one of the ways the addition establishes spaces that enhance community. For the stairwell, building includes the specification of code-compliant, butt-glazed fire-rated glass assemblies.

This design is a significant departure from the building’s original floor plan, which used opaque materials to meet building code requirements. Although effective, this approach obstructed views and limited access to daylight.

Including the widespread use of glass helped the project teams preserve unobstructed sightlines through the stairwell to each floor. It also maintained views out of the external glass curtain wall—all while satisfying code requirements.

Enhancing occupant experience

Scaife Hall includes features used specifically for opening the field of medical science and practice to the next generation of medical providers—from labs with augmented and virtual reality capabilities to reconfigurable classrooms equipped with giant screens and monitors. It also includes design elements meant to keep them safe while maintaining an open design.

For example, the use of butt-glazed assemblies around the central staircase enables students to scan each level. The ability of students to peer into each floor is important so that the building can serve as a social hub and as a practical means to offer new students intuitive wayfinding within the space. Each of the building’s seven floors has a different color theme for the walls and accents. Because students can quickly scan them as they move up the staircase, they can readily know where they are.

The fire-rated, butt-glazed assemblies maximize visual connection because they do not have vertical mullions. Instead, they use narrow vertical butt joints to allow uninterrupted horizontal spans of glass. They also safeguard a path of egress from smoke, flames and radiant heat.

These fire-rated, butt-glazed assemblies support the open and daylighted feel of the lounges immediately outside the stairwell. With only a narrow-profile perimeter frame, the butt-glazed assembly maximizes the possible glazing area of the design. This enables the fire-resistant rated glass to increase daylight access, connect adjacent spaces visually and meet code requirements for fire and life safety.

Cohesive design aesthetic

Creating a cohesive look in different parts of a stairwell can be difficult. For Scaife Hall, the stairwell brought together several features and materials within a confined space—the butt-glazed, fire-rated glass assemblies, the handrails and the exterior glass curtain wall.

The handrail systems include butt-glazed panels with a continuous handrail. Creating symmetry between this element and the entrances to each floor, the fire-rated glazing systems support compartmentalization efforts without compromising design intent. Likewise, the fire-rated perimeter frame is finished to provide visual cohesion with the handrail.

The perimeter frame’s narrow profile also provides a close visual match to the neighboring exterior curtain wall. This quality is important because multiple systems with varying performance requirements are in proximity; this can lead to discrepancies in framing profile sizes. Improving visual compatibility between fire-rated and non-rated systems can provide a more unified and intentional aesthetic in a space. The precision roll-forming techniques used for these framing systems result in narrower fire-rated frames that help designers achieve code requirements without having to sacrifice their intent.

Installation challenges

Although the look of the fire-rated glazing assemblies in Scaife Hall achieves specific design goals, their ability to meet building conditions is crucial to achieving fire rating requirements and ensuring an efficient installation. The building’s stairwell includes several custom corner conditions that could have proved challenging if there had not been collaboration throughout the design and installation phases. These aspects of the application needed multiple materials and systems to work together to achieve the right dimensions and conditions.

The manufacturer of the fire-rated assemblies collaborated with the project design team to fabricate custom corners that met the floor plan. This was critical to both the look and performance of these fire-rated glazing assemblies. The manufacturer worked closely with project stakeholders to ensure the material was phased in a way that supported an efficient and safe installation.

Stairwell design

Today, Scaife Hall functions as both a learning and social hub. Students can come and go while seeing their peers studying or relaxing on any of the seven floors as they work toward their degrees. The fire-rated, butt-glazed assemblies that encase the central staircase support the design goal of improved visual connection.

Not only do they contribute to a more occupant-centered design by improving navigability, but they also support medical students in establishing community—all while maintaining fire- and life-safety code requirements with fire-rated framing and glass.

The assemblies themselves enable the university to comply with codes without compromising design intent. Collaboration among designers, glaziers and manufacturers further ensured that these fire-rated assemblies were fabricated to meet the specific details of the project as well as shipped and installed in a way to support safe and efficient construction.

Jonathan Edly represents Technical Glass Products (TGP), a supplier of fire-rated glass and framing systems, along with specialty architectural glazing products.