Contract - July/August 2014 - 136

Architect Kevin deFreitas
Architects
Client University of California,
San Diego
Where La Jolla, California
What 30,000 total square
feet on two floors
Cost/sf $243
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list, see page 154 or
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How does one respect and update a midcentury modern brutalist
building, insert a new lecture hall in the middle of it, and also design
a new means to allow daylight to permeate much of the dynamically
reconceived interior? San Diego architect Kevin deFreitas showed
how in the renovation of Galbraith Hall at the University of California,
San Diego (UCSD).
Originally designed by Deems Lewis Martin & Associates in 1965
as the campus library, the building was based on a California version
of a heavy brutalist style, with expressive concrete structural elements
and a ubiquitous three-foot-deep waffle slab. Inside, the original
architects had placed a large, square, two-story reading room in the
center with a clerestory and skylights to flood the interior with daylight.
Recently, though, the university chose to renovate the building
and place a 417-seat lecture hall in the core. That decision was
seemingly at odds with the natural daylight entering the center of
the structure from above. For deFreitas, who was initially hired by the
university only to undertake a feasibility study for the project, the
preservation of the clerestories and skylights became the central
organizing principle for his winning bid to design the project.
Preserving light and views
Instead of closing in the central space to create the dark environment
necessary for a lecture hall, deFreitas proposed a box within the box to
allow shafts of daylight to spill down the surfaces of the exterior of the
hall and continue to activate the heart of the building. This was
especially critical, in deFreitas's view, since the building has many
enclosed spaces along its perimeter for different academic
departments-including two enclosed student study spaces, three
practice studios for the department of theater and dance, shared
conference rooms, and academic office space-that close off views
to the outside from the central circulation areas.
"This building was all about reduction," says deFreitas, referring
to a misguided 1998 renovation that had placed dropped ceilings under
the waffle slabs and added many interior partitions. "The daylighting is
what fundamentally makes this building extraordinary, so we did a lot
of stripping back, painting the waffle slabs white, and removing carpet
to expose concrete floors."
The exterior of the lecture hall is completely enclosed with
faceted metal panels, slanted at seven degrees to improve interior
acoustic performance, as well as to allow daylight to filter down
from above. A lightweight steel frame for the panels is connected to
the concrete post-and-beam waffle slab structure that underpins the

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july | august 2014

PHotoGrAPHy: CoUrteSy SPeCiAL CoLLeCtionS & ArCHiveS, UC SAn DieGo LibrAry (bottom)

Galbraith Hall at UC San Diego
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Contract - July/August 2014

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