Getting Creative with the Constraints of Adapting an Historic Building

By Anders Carpenter, John Long, and Matt Pierce – Perkins&Will?

The vibrancy of UC Law SF’s Academic Village is key to the stabilization and revitalization of the Civic Center, Mid-Market, and Tenderloin communities. The Academe at 198, a new academic and student housing building and the first major piece of the Academic Village, opened its doors last year and has already brought new energy to the area. Previously empty storefronts have returned to life, restaurants are seeing a resurgence in diners and take-out orders, and the streets are more active than before. These signals are sparking optimism for further renewal of the Tenderloin and Mid-Market neighborhoods with the next step in realizing the Academic Village: modernizing and repopulating the historic 100 McAllister Tower.??

The design process for the reuse of an historic building can present additional challenges. It requires getting to know the existing building at an intimate level and working with these constraints rather than against them. The team must get creative in order to achieve the ultimate goal of honoring the historic structure while maintaining the design vision.?

THE VISION?

100 McAllister, which has been adapted for a variety of uses over the course of nearly a century, is an appropriate metaphor for the area’s resilience. Taking care to preserve the architectural history, the latest renovation will extend its useful life by strengthening the structure and adapting to new programmatic needs.??

A Mixed-Use Program:

Interior improvements will further expand campus housing and academic options for the Academic Village, a vision supported not just by UC Law SF, but other Bay Area Institutions of higher education as well. The reimagined academic spaces will be shared with partner institutions, providing opportunities for collaboration and supporting a downtown hub for higher education. 100 McAllister will add approximately 280 beds of much-needed campus housing for students and trainees from schools across the Bay Area. The larger apartments in 100 McAllister will complement the efficiencies and studios offered in the Academe at 198, providing more variety in campus housing types.

An Urban Catalyst:?

The project is an affirmation of UC Law SF’s commitment to the development of affordable campus housing and a sustainable future – not only through the preservation of this historic resource but also its broader economic impact. When 100 McAllister reopens (scheduled in 2027 or 2028), the continued expansion of the Academic Village will create a more vibrant and secure urban environment benefiting the neighboring businesses and cultural institutions.

WORKING WITHIN HIGHLY COMPLEX CONSTRAINTS?

Adapting historic structures brings a set of challenges distinct from new builds. The retrofit, upgrade, and reuse of 100 McAllister requires satisfying a rigorous set of building code and operational requirements from state and national jurisdictions. One of the most notable lessons from this project is the highly complex composite of building codes and standards from different agencies, and how the project will navigate those to find a compliance path for all required permits for construction.??

Various city, state, and national agencies have permit oversight on 100 McAllister. The relevant permits they require for the project and what constraints those permit requirements create can have an effect on the overall design. These constraints do not exist in isolation; they must be considered and resolved in tandem with one another while maintaining the design vision for the upgraded and improved 100 McAllister.?

University of California - Seismic Requirements:?

The primary objective of the project is the seismic retrofit of 100 McAllister to improve structural stability, resilience, and life safety protection. The building has never received a comprehensive seismic retrofit in its 100-year history; considering that the retrofit funding has been provided by the state, UC Law SF wishes to adhere to the state requirements of the University of California Office of the President for structural and seismic safety. As such, the project is currently going through a rigorous peer review from the state Seismic Review Committee (SRC) as well as a designated structural Authority Having Jurisdiction (AHJ) who will ensure all SRC comments are satisfied while also making a formalized recommendation to the Office of State Fire Marshal (OSFM) to begin their permit review of the project.?

National Park Service / Office of Historic Preservation – Federal Tax Credits:?

In addition to state funding, the project is also relying on Federal Tax Credits for historic preservation to help finance the construction beyond the seismic retrofit work. To receive these tax credits, the project must satisfy requirements for historic preservation from both the California Office of Historic Preservation (OHP) and the National Parks Service (NPS). Aside from the optional tax credit requirements, the building is subject to mandatory covenants on the exterior shell which dictate that any modifications to the exterior must be very limited. Preservation of the interior is not required by these covenants, but it is required to receive the tax credits. The team established levels of historic significance for each of the existing spaces inside the building to help determine the degree of preservation required for each space and this is the basis of compliance review for OHP and NPS.?

Office of State Fire Marshal – All Primary Building Permits:?

The other primary set of safety upgrades for the building beyond the seismic retrofit are fire and life safety upgrades to the structure, spaces, and systems of the building. The Office of State Fire Marshal is the AHJ for this scope and will provide all of the primary permits for construction. There have been various upgrades to the egress components and fire suppression/detection systems in the building over the years, but many of these items are now in need of comprehensive upgrades. Given the complexity of working within existing constraints, the basis of design for the holistic building upgrades will pursue a code compliance path that references a composite of requirements from the Historic Building Code, Existing Building Code, and California Building Code.?

Division of State Architect – Access Compliance Permit:?

The original use of the building as a church and hotel meant that these two functions were physically separated in the podium floors, which has prompted the need for various accessibility upgrades over the years to resolve many of the level changes. Many of the upgrades have been focused on creating an accessible path of primary travel, but several areas will benefit from a more holistic reconsideration of access compliance to make the programmatic connections more logical, convenient, and free of barriers. The Division of State Architect will provide the permit for access compliance for the project, which will factor in the building’s primary occupancy and use being unchanged since 1991 as well as its historic status and what that means for preserving existing conditions in some cases.?

Additional Constraints:?

In addition to the state permits summarized above, the project will also require review and permitting through the City of San Francisco’s Department of Public Works, Public Utilities Commission, and Pacific Gas & Electric for street improvements, stormwater impacts, and utility equipment and connections. Along with code compliance and related permits, the project must also address several operational factors in the building that must be improved or maintained at the requirement of UC Law SF. These include modifying the basis of design for elevators, trash management, and security. These systems have historically functioned well in the building but with the revised design will be greatly simplified and modernized to improve human experience, performance, and maintenance requirements.?

?

CREATIVE RESPONSES TO THE CONSTRAINTS?

Architectural solutions in response to a holistic review of the requirements, limitations, and new programmatic needs rely on innovative and thoughtful approaches to find synergies within constraints to retain the magic of this historic building while also greatly improving the user experience of occupants and residents.?

Shaping the Space:?

While the seismic design successfully avoided impacting historically significant spaces on the east side of the building such as the lobby, the walnut room, and the ballroom, connective spaces to the west were more substantially impacted. This area between the great hall and the historic spaces already contained some irregularities due to the stacking of the tower and the great hall, which were exacerbated by the seismic upgrade. There were so many requirements pushing on these spaces that they necessitated an intentional approach to creating spatial hierarchy and wayfinding that wasn’t dictated by the seismic constraints. The process became one of layering. Starting with existing structure, overlaying the new structure, and then additively layering in walls, soffits, and ceiling to shape the resulting spaces into a network of nodes and connectors.?

Organizing Space Around Structure:?

The seismic design approach has avoided impacts to the great hall and gym as much as possible, but some level of impact was unavoidable. The shear walls, which are constructed to help resist lateral seismic loads, run on the East–West axis and straddle the large volume of the great hall and the basketball court below it, preserving those primary volumes. Typically, openings such as doorways or windows are permitted in shear walls so long as they fall within specific zones, but not in this case. Based on their footprint and location at the lowest levels of the building, no openings were permitted. So, while the shear walls do not run through the sports court, they did initially split the sideline viewing area and circulation on each side in half, while also severely limiting view angles to the court. Thankfully, it was decided that the sports program was more historically important than the specific configuration of the sports court itself, creating the opportunity to rearrange the floor to adapt to the new constraints. By flipping the sports court from the south to the north, the team was able to locate the court entirely to one side of the shear walls and solve the viewing problem, while also creating a better point of arrival to the south for the new, expanded fitness program.?

Masking Disorder with Order:?

Once the team had solved the layout of the fitness program within the existing structure and new lateral elements, a leftover space remained with many irregularities, such as oddly spaced columns and beams, that made the space feel disorganized and confusing.?

The solution was to overlay elements that could economically introduce a sense of order and intentionality to the space. The first step was to introduce walls and transparent partitions that build on and reinforce the symmetry of the sports court and the flexible fitness area. The second was to paint the ceiling structure black and suspend a field of evenly spaced linear light fixtures that would visually override the irregularities of the concrete beams and girders above, while also masking things like conduits, junction boxes, and sprinkler pipes in the shadows.?