The post Davis Plans for Downtown University Gateway District appeared first on School Construction News.

To honor the legacy of artists Wayne Thiebaud and Robert Arneson, who came to teach at UC Davis in the 1960s, the university is building the Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art, in which faculty will teach both art and architecture. The museum is named after Jan Shrem, proprietor of Close Pegase winery in California’s Napa Valley, and his wife, arts patron Maria Manetti Shrem. In 2011, they contributed $10 million towards building a museum that would be a new teaching source for the area. The estimated cost of the museum is around $30 million, according to the university.

The university may have started a new trend in this niche area of construction by announcing in late November that instead of just hiring a design-build team, they were going to give three teams, four months to create a design and prepare a bid for the museum. The method of delivery has created a competition for designers and contractors to produce the best possible project to the university.

Design-build refers to the process in which architects, engineers and builders combine their talents to work on a single contract for new construction. According to the Design-Build Institute of America (DBIA), the use of design-build has “greatly accelerated” in the U.S. over the past 15 years. By developing a project under a single contract, it helps save money and time by encouraging collaboration and teamwork between designers and builders. Plus, the DBIA says a combined team is more likely to incorporate BIM and LEED certification goals.

The applicant teams were chosen based on criteria that included art-exhibition experience, design ability, familiarity with UC Davis and an understanding of the art world and academic community. Plus, the university chose them in hopes of advancing the standard of sustainability in art museums, making the school an expert in this arena. The three teams that the school selected and believe represent the best — or most innovative — talent in the industry include:

• Contractor: Kitchell; design architect: WORKac; executive architect: Westlake Reed Leskosky
• Contractor: Oliver and Company; design architect: Henning Larsen Architects; executive architect: Gould Evans
• Contractor: Whiting-Turner; design architect: SO – IL; executive architect: Bohlin Cywinski Jackson

The winner of the competition will be announced in a public presentation in late March or early April. The museum will be built on a 1.6-acre site and is slated for completion in 2016, serving as the anchor of a planned arts district for the university. It will also house the school’s fine arts collection, which includes more than 4,000 works of art — several of which were created by former art department faculty.

The post UC Davis Hosts Rare Design-Build Competition appeared first on School Construction News.

The Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Farrow Museum of Art, named after its latest donors, will serve as a teaching and cultural resource for UCD students, faculty and staff when it is completed in 2015. The 40,000-square-foot museum will house the university’s more than 4,000 works of art, which includes pieces by former art department faculty such as Wayne Thiebaud, Robert Arneson, Roy De Forest and William T. Wiley.

“The museum will build upon the university’s long tradition of excellence in the arts, serve as a source of rich learning opportunities for our students, and provide inspiration to generations of artists,” said Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi. “We are very grateful for this extraordinary commitment and for Jan and Maria’s vision and partnership in the creation of a museum of the art at UC Davis.”

The museum will be designed by architect Michael Graves and built on a 1.6-acre site near the Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts, the UC Davis Conference Center and Maurice J. Gallagher Jr. Hall, home of the university’s Graduate School of Management.

The $10 million contribution will cover one-third of the total building costs and allow the university to begin the design phase. Another $15 million will come from private philanthropic gifts.

The school will not use student tuition, fees or state funds for construction of the museum. UC Davis plans to raise between $5 million and $20 million in additional private gifts for the museum, including an endowment to support museum programs.

The $10 million gift is one of the largest the university has ever received for the arts.

Donor Manetti Farrow is a grower and collector of fine wines and produces premium balsamic vinegar and award-winning olive oils served at some of the finest restaurants in the country.

“Both Jan and I came to this country as young people, more or less the same age as the students at UC Davis,” Farrow said. “And we both remember what it was like to begin life all over again in a new world, where education was our salvation and the arts were our greatest joy. Everything that is being planned for the new museum of art suggests it will become an integral part of the university, the curriculum and the community. We also believe it will become the heart of the campus, a place where people can come to study, to learn, to look and to be moved by the beauty and strength of the arts.”

The museum could fuel new academic programs for students at the school, such as museum studies, curatorial and preservation studies, and house an archive of artists’ papers and materials for future study, said Jessie Ann Owens, dean of UC Davis’ Division of Humanities, Arts and Cultural Studies.

“A university museum will allow students to experience works of art first-hand in a way that is not possible with reproductions,” said Wayne Thiebaud, professor emeritus of the arts at UC Davis. “It is this kind of experience that is essential to the university’s teaching mission. As a teacher, I am delighted to know that this gift will make the museum a reality.”

The post Donation Helps UC Davis Build $30 Million Art Museum appeared first on School Construction News.

The $34 million project includes the U.C. Davis Conference Center and the Maurice J. Gallagher Jr. Hall, home of the UC Davis Graduate School of Management. The complex was designed and built to use 30 percent less energy than a typical office building, according to a university statement.

The complex joins the U.C. Davis Robert Mondavi Institute for Wine and Food Science — the first brewery, winery and food-processing complex in the world to earn the Platinum designation — and the U.C. Davis Tahoe Environmental Research Center in Incline Village, Nev., which received LEED Platinum certification in 2007.

A $10 million gift from alumnus and Las Vegas airline executive Maurice J. Gallagher Jr. and his wife Marcia funded the Gallagher Hall project.

"We’re thrilled with the platinum rating for Gallagher Hall, which reflects the Graduate School of Management’s and UC Davis’ culture of environmental responsibility and our collective commitment to furthering the global adoption of sustainable green building and
development practices,” said Steven Currall, dean of the management school.

The certification makes Gallagher Hall the first LEED Platinum MBA school in the state and the third in the nation.

The Conference Center, which brings in nearly 500 conferences annually, hosted last year’s Governors’ Global Climate Summit 3, an event for leaders from around the world to develop sub-national collaboration on policies and strategies to reduce greenhouse gas pollution and stimulate green jobs.

The San Francisco office of Sasaki Associates Inc. designed the Graduate School of Management and Conference Center project, with Sundt Construction’s Sacramento, Calif., office as the general contractor.

In the fall of this year, the university also opened U.C. Davis West Village, a 130-acre zero net energy housing community. At build-out, the project will house 3,000 students, faculty and staff and be the largest zero net energy housing development in the country, according to the university.

Additional green measures at the university include its Smart Lighting Initiative, which aims to energy demand for lighting by 60 percent by 2015, and its Climate Action Plan, which enabled the campus to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to below year 2000 levels and targets year 1990 levels by 2020.

The post U.C. Davis Earns Third LEED Platinum Award appeared first on School Construction News.

The post $3 Million Gift to UC Davis for Sustainable Winery appeared first on School Construction News.