Skip to main content
Add as a preferred source on Google

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign: Chemistry Annex

  • 03/01/19
university of illinois

TOP LEFT PHOTO © JAMES STEINKAMP PHOTOGRAPHY, TOP RIGHT AND BOTTOM PHOTOS © BAILEY EDWARD

Built in 1937, the Chemistry Annex on the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign’s campus is an Art Moderne/Art Deco-style building housing classrooms and laboratories for its namesake field. The university wanted to preserve the historic fabric of the building while providing modern amenities and new, state-of-the-art teaching facilities through a sympathetic 9,000-square-foot addition designed by Harley Ellis Deveraux and restoration of the historic character defining elements, led by the preservation team at Bailey Edward.

The central staircase in the building features a uniquely vibrant colored terrazzo pattern characteristic of Art Moderne style. Over time, the terrazzo’s finish yellowed, dulling the color. The old polish was sensitively stripped, and the terrazzo refinished to bring the colors back to life and protected from future damage with a new sealant that won’t yellow.

On the exterior, repairs were made to the decorative concrete and brick masonry. However, the exterior wall system had to be thermally upgraded to increase the sustainability of the building. After careful study and coordination with the interior build-out, two inches of open-cell urethane insulation was included on the inside face of the walls. This insulation significantly contributed to the building reaching LEED Gold certification and allowed the exterior to remain historically intact.

Decorative cast-in-place concrete elements were restored by cleaning, patching, and matching the original color and composition of the concrete. The historic exterior light fixtures were replicated and restored. Each fixture was coated in the same hyblum alloy so that they would patina at the same rate.

The restoration of the Chemistry Annex won a preservation award from the Prairie Chapter of the American Institute of Architects and allows the university to modernize their facilities and attract students while remaining true to the character of historic building.

This article originally appeared in the College Planning & Management March 2019 issue of Spaces4Learning.

Featured

  • University of Oklahoma Announces New Campus Master Plan

    The University of Oklahoma in Norman, Okla., recently announced that it will soon launch a new, comprehensive Campus Master Plan to guide the campus’ physical development during the next decade, according to a news release.

  • Chartwells Launches Campus Dining Evaluation Framework

    Contract food-service management provider Chartwells Higher Education recently announced the launch of BLUEPRINT, according to a news release. The evaluation framework was designed to provide a data-driven and customizable roadmap towards optimizing campus dining services and, by extension, the student experience.

  • Architectural Power for the Modern Campus Landscape

    For generations, an outdoor classroom only required a textbook and a patch of grass. Today, not only has the laptop replaced the printed pages, the rise of agile learning has turned campuses into study halls with students listening to lectures and researching topics from quads, gardens, and plazas. The challenge for architects and facility managers is to provide connectivity without cluttering the landscape with visual eyesores or creating safety hazards with extension cords.

  • Photo credit - Chuck Coates

    Florida District Modernizes Central Energy Plants at Two High Schools

    Flagler Schools, a public school district in Flagler County, Fla., recently partnered with Matern Professional Engineering to modernize the central energy plants at two of its high schools, according to a news release. The project is part of a larger, district-wide effort to reduce energy costs and operational expenses.