KVA transforms vaulted concrete Colorado sports facility into arts hub
American studio Kennedy & Violich Architecture has adapted a vaulted 1960s ice skating pavilion into an education building with workshops in Colorado Springs, Colorado, USA.
The Colorado College Honnen Arts Hub was completed in 2024, the latest iteration of the 1961 Lusk and Wallace skating pavilion, which featured seven, 180-foot (55-metre) thin-shell barrel vaults.
The open-air pavilion, made entirely of cast concrete, was enclosed in the 1980s to create a hockey arena. Now, the 30,000-square-foot (2,787-square-metre) structure holds a series of art studios, workshop spaces and galleries.
"When we first visited Honnen, it was cavernous, dingy and dim," Juan Frano Violich, principal of Boston-based Kennedy & Violich Architecture (KVA), told Dezeen.
"The barrel vault roof somehow rose above it all. It was so familiar and seemed strangely connected – in conversation – with other vaulted structures, the great Mosque of Cordoba and Louis Kahn's Kimball Art Museum."
On the exterior, the studio broke down the enclosing walls added in the '80s, opening the undersides of the vault with thin-profile glazing and painting the new recessed entry a warm terracotta colour derived from the red sandstone of the alpine desert landscape.
Inside, KVA closed off the exterior into bays, determined by the 30-foot (9-metre) lateral span of the vaults.
On the north end of the rectangular plan, the back-of-house workshops have additional ventilation, make-up air systems, power and acoustic mediation; while on the southern end, the spaces are more public-facing with studios, classrooms and an exhibition space for the college's fine arts department.
Outside of the art studios and classrooms, the vaults are emphasised by orange-painted walls that align with additional painting on the ceiling of the wide-open central space in the centre of the plan. Orange detaling continues outside and can be seen in subtle details such as curtains in the machine shops.
Inside the art studios, the walls were left relatively unadorned with exposed mechanical systems. The glass-covered exteriors of the vaults bring in additional outdoor light.
In addition to directing views out to the Colorado Rockies, the vaults act as ducted plenums, contributing to an air conditioning-free ventilation system, contributing to the overall efficiency of the design.
"[The vaults] are a large part of why the building is so adaptable, welcoming, and resilient," the studio said.
Following the college's achievement of becoming carbon neutral in 2020, the studio employed a displaced air system, eliminating the need for refrigerated cooling in the high desert climate.
The team said the project required them to "tread lightly and be generous," due to the diverse needs of the various programmatic elements, including volume, air-flow and occupants.
"In many ways [the building] represents a cross section of a city, where there are places of learning, work, public gathering, and even industry, all under one column-free vaulted roof," the studio said.
"This juxtaposition of programs with apparent conflicting needs, in this instance, works together to create a unique tension bringing energy to the space and its activities."
Other recent projects that employ a similar vaulted roof system to provide both structure and organisation include an Argentinian house by Fabrizio Puglisese, an Ecuadorian hotel extension by Ignacio Muñoz Bustamante and Javier Mera Luna and a Mexican community centre by Aidia Studio.
The photography is by Frank Ooms.
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