Anna Hiss Gymnasium Renovation

The existing gymnasium building has been vacant at the University of Texas at Austin for some time and during this time many departments have tried to find uses for the building. The two-story structure was built in 1930 and is in amazingly good condition, however, the exterior needs to be stabilized and aging roof and windows replaced. The building originally housed women’s athletics and is viewed as one of the historical buildings on campus with the original blended camel exterior brick and red Spanish tile roof matching the original campus buildings.

The University selected BSA to convert the building into a robotics laboratory. The vision was to pull the growing robotics program together on campus form the three schools and multiple building and campus locations into one space where a collaborative environment could be provided. With no program developed, one of the key challenges was to get an understanding of all the different labs and their needs to allow them to operate and grow in a new building. This included understanding the types of spaces needed for each program and finding key elements that could be shared between all the groups.

As a historic building on campus, the vision shared by the design team and the University was to preserve the existing exterior character of the building. The windows and roof all need to be replaced and the methodology was to replace the windows with modern energy-efficient systems that mimicked the historic profiles and scale. The roof replacement will salvage existing tiles and replace broken and missing tiles with new tiles that match. The interior character will also be retained in specific areas to reflect the original environment. The planning examined the building from an open box standpoint, ignoring existing configurations to allow the plan to evolve with circulation placed where needed to allow the most flexible use of the space. A new elevator will be provided to connect all levels including a new mezzanine to be built in the gymnasium space to increase usable space. Lower levels will be cleared out to create large open lab spaces and shred shops and support spaces. One area of the building will have the existing floor removed and lowered to provide a robust slab for large and heavy robotics.

All new building systems were added to provide the infrastructure required to have a flexible laboratory building capable of growth and a changing program. The building, was supplied with services from other buildings, is now set up as a stand-alone building with its own electrical and mechanical systems. The mechanical system tie into a chilled water loop, but will valve off in a way the building will be unaffected by issues in other surrounding buildings. The building is fully sprinkled and a new fire alarm system was installed to bring the building into compliance with University standards for an occupied building.

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