Project Overview
Just a decade ago, the offices of Virginia’s General Assembly faced significant programmatic and functional challenges. Spread across several buildings, House and Senate members worked in undersized, dimly lit rooms with low ceilings and ill-proportioned legislative hearing rooms with columns that impeded sight lines. Officials eventually deemed these conditions untenable, leading to the decision to design and construct a modern facility that consolidates the offices into a single building. The state’s new General Assembly Building occupies a full block site, anchoring the northwest corner of Richmond’s Capitol Square. The massive, 414,000 ft2 facility came to life through the design work of Robert A.M. Sterns Architects and GATE Precast’s production of nearly 1300 precast concrete panels.
Rooted in History
The new building meets contemporary General Assembly requirements while expertly complementing the character of Richmond’s historic Capitol Square district. The 10-story, masonry-clad tower for the offices of house delegates and senators rises above a four-story podium with publicly accessible legislative committee rooms and a variety of supporting amenities. Both the podium’s height and architectural expression reinforce the historic cornice height maintained by other civic buildings in the area. Carefully colored, textured, and detailed precast concrete panels emulate limestone across much of the building’s exterior. Through meticulously detailed prefabrication techniques, joints—which typically are not visible on limestone facades—were avoided.
According to Preston Gumberich, AIA, partner with Robert A.M. Sterns Architects, a precast concrete panelized facade system was chosen for the project principally due to the material’s durability, aesthetic flexibility, and economy. The reinforced panels are on the larger, thicker size in part to simulate the depth of shadow and reveal of a coursed, hand-laid limestone block facade.– an approach which pays homage to architecture of the past while simultaneously enabling the General Assembly Building to blend with nearby structures in the Capitol Square District.
“This precast concrete system allowed for significant freedom of design in creating traditionally detailed architectural elements such as cornices and entablatures, fluted pilasters, deep set windows, and ornamental spandrel panels—all of which intentionally recall key elements of the restored 1912 limestone facades of the historic Life Insurance Company of Virginia,” Gumberich said. “Precast concrete also allowed for a high level of quality control, including the precise fine-tuning of the concrete mixture’s color and, to some degree, its surface texture as well, to match the limestone of that historic facade.”
Several innovative accomplishments were realized on the project. To retain the color palette of the historic facade while keeping budget and constructability concerns in mind, the architecture team met with the general contractor Gilbane Building Company on a weekly basis for more than a year. This collaborative approach was key in preserving the design intent of retaining the aesthetics of the original structure and providing the powerful, institutional feel of an established government building. Sustainability was another key consideration for the project team, and, through a variety of efforts and resource efficiency work deployed on the project, the building is on track to receive LEED Gold certification from the U.S. Green Building Council. At the center of the sustainability effort was the use of precast concrete, which helped the team meet its goal to source at least 10% of all construction materials within 500 miles of the project.
Through the dedicated efforts of the entire project team and the use of precast concrete panels, Virginia’s new General Assembly Building both recalls the state’s past and meets the needs of a 21st-century legislature.
“In part, through the incorporation of a thoughtfully detailed, fabricated, and installed precast concrete facade system, this important new building provides a noble and fitting structure designed to facilitate collaboration, public engagement, and effective government in the Commonwealth of Virginia for generations to come,” Gumberich said.
Mason Nichols is a Grand Rapids, Mich.-based writer and editor who has covered the precast concrete industry since 2013. |