University of Iowa Art Building West

The new building for the University of Iowa School of Art and History incorporates classrooms, studios, offices, and a library. The structure’s design combines an exposed wide flange steel framing with hollow-core precast concrete floor planks. The planks distribute the building’s electrical, mechanical, and plumbing services, allowing for clean exposed structure where cladding would typically be required. The building features a central forum stair, where the tread/riser system is made of bent steel plate welded to the vertical plates and vertical plates act both as deep beams and handrails. These plates connect to discrete hanger rods in the structure above or have expressed direct connections to adjacent exposed framing. The library partially extends over an adjacent pond, supported on two asymmetrically braced piers. An expressed pin-connected tension truss in the vertical planes of this ‘bridge’ provides for the long spans and overall stability.