Architect 2014-03.pdf

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PRODUCTS
ARCHITECT THE AIA MAGAZINE MARCH 2014 WWW.ARCHITECTMAGAZINE.COM
Four-Way and Two-Way Cast-Steel End Connectors
PTFE membrane corner
Cantilevered
support beam
Crisscrossed steel-cable net
PTFE membrane
corner
Crisscrossed
steel-cable net
Cantilevered
support beam
DETAIL
A Timber Structure on a Tight Budget
MONEY WAS TIGHT for the Cascades Academy, in Bend, Ore.,
which needed a facility to accommodate its growing student
population that had been stuck in rented classrooms since
the private day school’s founding in 2003. While the forested
site overlooking the Deschutes River called for a timber
structure, the nonprofit’s budget was more in the realm of
fiber-cement cladding or stucco on block.
In 2007, the school’s board of directors hired Portland,
Ore.–based Hennebery Eddy Architects to design a master
plan for the 21-acre site, but the board pressed the
pause button when the economy soured. In 2009, after
plans resumed and Hennebery Eddy began design on a
38,500-square-foot facility, talk turned to slashing costs—
and expectations. A couple of the school’s board members
spoke up, says Hennebery Eddy founding principal and
project design leader Tim Eddy, AIA. “They wanted a building
that belongs in the region.”
Resolved to avoid the Pacific Northwest’s overused chalet
aesthetic, the firm crafted a “more finely detailed piece of
contemporary architecture” that reflects the school’s naturefocused
mission and met the budget, Eddy says. Wood, glass,
and novel steel connection details blur the line between the
outdoors and indoors while strategic material and design
choices made the project financially feasible. LOGAN WARD
firm DS-Plan calculated that the optimal awning
shape was a twisted, three-dimensional
square tipped on its end.
Each square of membrane measures 5 meters
along the diagonal and is forced into an
anticlastic—or double-curved—shape by caststeel
end connectors that pull each membrane
corner to two nets of crisscrossed steel cable,
spaced 8 feet apart. A steel-cable support system
ties the tensile structure to cantilevered
beams bristling out from the existing steel-andconcrete
building.
The awnings block 93 percent of the incoming
sunlight all day, save for about 30 minutes
at daybreak and 30 minutes at sunset. To avoid
turning their glass building into a greenhouse,
the designers left a 2-meter gap between the
tensile fabric façade and the building. Convection
circulates hot air up and out of the cavity.
That geometry was the starting point,
Lücking says. “The rhythm of the façade dictated
everything else … the grid of structural elements
and the interior space.”
Learn how
Hennebery Eddy
realized its design
for the Cascades
Academy at
architectmagazine
.com. The Detail
series of innovative
material-assembly
solutions is proudly
supported by
reThink Wood.
JOSH PARTEE