Harvard Yard Child Care Center

What were the circumstances of receiving the commission for this project?

The project originated as part of an ongoing program of renovating existing buildings at Harvard University's main campus, and the need to house displaced functions during the work. For many needs, such as classroom and office space, acceptable alternatives could be found in other existing buildings nearby, but when the building housing two Child Care Centers was to be renovated, it was determined that a purpose-built facility would be needed during the approximately 2 year period, because of the special design and licensing requirements for child care centers.The University approached a number of temporary building leasing companies seeking an existing solution that could be leased, but because of the special design and licensing requirements for child care centers it was determined that no existing modular buildings could be affordably adapted for the needs. One of the companies, Triumph Modular, continued to look for solutions, and contacted Anderson Anderson Architecture. We decided to work together as a design/build team to propose a purpose-built new structure that Harvard could first use for the Child Care Centers, and then relocate as needed anywhere else on their campus to fill other swing-space needs. Harvard was pleased with the entrepreneurial problem-solving approach of our team, and proceeded to engage with us on the further development of the project.

How does the completed building compare to the project as designed? Were there any dramatic changes between the two and/or lessons learned during construction?

Encouraged by Harvard's commitment to sustainable design principles, our first design proposals included options for net-zero-energy solutions, with active solar photovoltaic and solar thermal systems used in conjunction with other high performance features. With a slowing economy and budget priorities shifting to the needs of the permanent building renovation, our re-locatable project was ultimately given a new challenge, which was to make the most highly sustainable building possible, with no extra net cost beyond the least expensive standard modular buildings that Harvard could have leased. This proved to be a very difficult challenge, as many of the energy-neutral features we had first proposed were no longer possible, but it actually made the project more interesting and more important in some ways, as we took this as an opportunity to work on streamlining and improving the "base" level modular buildings that are used most commonly.We realized that the only way to include some extra sustainability features would be to look for efficiencies and simplifications in other areas of the building, and so we worked closely with Triumph Modular and several manufacturers to analyze and rethink the industry-standard structures. Our team eventually chose to work with a manufacturer in Indiana, Commercial Structures, which proved to have an excellent team of experienced, and innovation-minded project managers, engineers, and craftspeople. As we worked, Triumph Modular asked us to expand our project scope to help design a new generation of their "fleet" buildings, which they keep in stock for immediate leasing to a wide variety of clients. Now our charge was to use the Harvard project as an opportunity to prototype a design for the new Sustainable Fleet buildings for Triumph.

How does the building compare to other projects in your office, be it the same or other building types?

We were invited to design this building as a result of the exposure for another project we are doing, an energy neutral re-locatable classroom prototype for the State of Hawaii Department of Education. We were awarded this project as a result of a competitive RFP process, where a small number of design/build teams were invited to develop concepts for the next generation of standalone classrooms, which are used extensively throughout the Hawaiian Islands. There is a plan to replace up to several thousand of the existing portable classrooms with new high performance energy-neutral options. Our design features a razor-back roofline, with solar panels facing south, light-catching clerestory windows facing north, and water collection strategies to capture rainwater for re-use in the building and landscaping.

How does the building relate to contemporary architectural trends, be it sustainability, technology, etc.?

In many ways, the success of this building was a result of using Building Information Modeling design software together with an Integrated Project Delivery Structure. From the earliest design studies to the final construction documents, the building was digitally modeled in Autodesk's Revit BIM platform. By using detailed modeling of every piece of the structural system, we were able to focus attention on making numerous small improvements to standard approaches to modular building construction, which together add up to create significant advantages. For instance, the height of modular buildings is restricted by the road-legal shipping height of the individual modules. This is particularly important in Massachusetts, which has low bridges, and some of the lowest truck height limits of any state in the country. At the same time, we wanted the interior ceilings to be as high as possible to help the efficiency of distribution of daylight from the many solar tube skylights, and for the acoustic and spatial advantages. Given the limited overall shipping height limits, the only way to get more interior ceiling height was by working through the structural systems to decrease the thickness of the ceilings and floors, as well as the steel chassis and wheel assembly on which the building would travel. Using the BIM software, we modeled a number of different options for placement of all the structural components, and worked with the engineers at Commercial Structures to optimize the solutions for not only space saving, but also for efficiency of assembly and affordability of the structural components. The ability to schedule embedded data with the parametric capabilities of the Revit BIM software made possible a highly efficient iterative design process. We eventually found ways to save an inch here and there in the thickness of each assembly, and to nest the floor structure within the steel delivery chassis, in order to get an interior ceiling that is significantly higher than in traditional modular buildings. Another advantage in this was lowering the finished floor closer to the ground, which saves cost on the ramps and steps required to provide access to the building, and reduced the footprint size of the whole building.

Are there any new/upcoming projects in your office that this building's design and construction has influenced?

Since completing the Harvard Child Care Center, we have continued to work on new prototypes for high-performance sustainable modular buildings. We are also working on highly custom, one-off building designs (for both site-built and prefabricated processes), but in many ways we are most intrigued with the opportunity to have a larger impact by working with a market sector that typically does not work with architects at all, and has not embraced energy efficiency and sustainable design principles. Through the efficiencies of modular building and delivery systems we see an opportunity to make high quality buildings more affordable, and more available to a wider range of users. What we learned from the Harvard project is that to do this in an affordable way requires a great deal of research and design creativity, and a highly collaborative team structure of people working together with shared goals.

E-mail interview conducted by John Hill