Project Overview
The William H. Neukom Building at Stanford Law School creates a focal point along the principal circulation route linking the campus’s residential and academic precincts. The building’s appearance, designed to maintain continuity with the university’s master plan, features architectural precast concrete panels for its cladding. The panels helped achieve the project’s goals of minimizing the energy footprint with their thermal mass and of maximizing the building’s aesthetic uniformity by combining limestone-clad and exposed-aggregate precast concrete panels.
The energy-performance goal for the building was to exceed the California Title 24 Energy Code by a minimum of 30%. This was achieved with a variety of techniques, including passive architectural strategies, such as the use of precast concrete panels, high-efficiency mechanical systems, and water-reducing products. The final design is calculated to reduce energy consumption by 32% and outperform the average comparable building in energy usage by 76%.
Precast Solution
The 153 precast panels feature pieces of French limestone, with some measuring 8 × 27 ft (2.4 × 8.2 m). In the field, the precaster developed a system of hand-setting the limestone pieces over the precast concrete panel joints, creating the running-bond design. This provided continuity and also hid the joints.
To continue the limestone appearance on the interior, stone-clad precast concrete panels were installed on both the exterior and interior sides along the window system, with limestone hand set at the intersections. This approach created a seamless transition that is waterproof and eliminated thermal bridging. |