We transformed the Grant Center Dining Commons into the College’s new School of Business, one of the initial projects identified in the master plan. The design creates a new main entry and inserts a three-story atrium that brings natural light deep into the building. A glass façade creates an open and welcoming presence adjacent to a major city thoroughfare.
The renovation and addition created flexible, technology-rich classrooms, faculty offices, a café, student resource center, and open social spaces. An Instructional Boardroom and a Technology Sandbox supports both immediate and long-term program needs. The entire west façade was opened up with a new curtain wall system to maximize daylighting and display the activity within.
To accommodate the new vertical addition, the existing cast-in-place/ steel frame structure was renovated, reinforcing lower-level concrete columns with steel angles and plates, and an interior column was replaced with transfer girders. The existing waffle slab was modified by cutting large openings and reinforcing it in a variety of ways, including steel beams beneath and integral concrete edge beams along cut openings.
The renovation and addition created flexible, technology-rich classrooms, faculty offices, a café, student resource center, and open social spaces.
Given Concordia's strong interest in sustainability, leveraging the embodied energy in existing buildings through modernization proved a best-fit strategy for cost-effectively realizing "new" facilities. We are excited to have partnered with the College from master planning through design and implementation. In fact, our transformational design for the Offutt School of Business helped the College raise funds for the Integrated Science Center.
