Cameron University’s School of Business Completes $7 Million Business Building

New 30,000-Square-Foot Building Now Open For Students

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LAWTON, Okla. (Sept. 25, 2009) – Cameron University’s School of Business has now completed the brand new 30,000-square-foot business building, costing $7 million, available for students this fall semester. The Oklahoma City based architectural and engineering firm, Frankfurt Short Bruza (FSB), accounted for the campus’s overall architectural layout when designing the School of Business building.

“Designing a new building on a campus rich with history is always a special challenge. FSB was charged with developing a new, fresh architectural style for Cameron while complimenting the existing fabric of the campus,” said Fred Schmidt principal at FSB. “We used the current palette of materials on campus and creatively molded them into an exciting architectural statement reflecting Cameron’s bold commitment to the future.”

The facility is designed provide a highly integrated environment that encourages interaction between students and faculty. The two story entry atrium creates a living room for the school with soft seating pockets for either informal gatherings or formal reception events. The building will include a tiered 117-seat auditorium with an acoustically appointed multimedia system, high-tech multimedia classrooms, team seminar rooms, faculty offices around open lounge space that is inviting to students, a streaming ticker board on the lobby and classrooms and career success center among other student-friendly additions.

Opening its doors for the first time in 1909, Cameron University held its first classes in the basement of a bank building and has now developed into a university seeing an average of 6,000 students for enrollment.

Academic Commons Building at Cameron University Designed by FSB Unveiled in Extreme Makeover Style

LAWTON, Okla. (October 1, 2012) – A crowd of faculty, staff, students and donors recently gathered on the campus of Cameron University for the unveiling of the new Academic Commons. The $4 million renovation took about a year to complete and is a transformation of the former student union.

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Previously known by students as “the ugliest building on campus,” the newly remodeled structure houses the Communication Department’s convergence journalism program, Sarkeys Foundation Student Computer Laboratory, an IT help desk, a multidisciplinary tutoring center, and modern classroom space.

“Cameron University is focused on providing a 21st century higher education environment for its students,” said Fred Schmidt, project principal over the Frankfurt Short Bruza architecture and engineering team. “Our team designed the renovation to support that effort in every way possible. From advanced electronics for the television studio down to soft seating areas that provide an interactive environment for the students, this project continues FSB’s work to build a stronger Cameron.”

Cameron Move that Bus Before unveiling the building, the crowd watched a short video documenting the construction called “Extreme Makeover – Cameron Edition.” At the conclusion of the video, the large bus blocking the view of the building pulled away to loud cheers of “move that bus.”

FAA Building Brings New Era to Govt. Design

expert-interview-fdm-faa-bldg-new-era-govt-dsgn — The colorful, windowless metal registry building mirrors the dynamic nature of both federal government work and the high-tech aeronautical industry that the FAA represents. Greg Hursley, Inc.

By: Anthony DeMarco, Associate Editor

The Federal Aviation Administration’s Airmen and Aircraft Registry Building, Oklahoma City, is bringing new meaning to the term “good enough for government.”

In both appearance and function, the 109,000 sq.ft. facility, designed by Frankfurt Short Bruza, Oklahoma City, mirrors the dynamic nature of both federal government work and the high-tech aeronautical industry that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) represents. The colorful, windowless metal building stands out among the approximate 37 concrete buildings (only one other building has a similar design) that occupy the FAA’s Mike Monroney Aeronautical Center campus. “The government changes on a daily basis,” says David C. Gann, FAA senior architect. “We’re downsizing, we’re relocating, and we’re constantly replacing technology. So there are a lot of changes happening on campus.”

Gann, registry building project coordinator, says that unlike most government buildings, the “proactive” design of this two-story structure meets the registry’s future expansion and technological needs, offers enough flexibility to manage the changing requirements of government work, and provides a healthy work environment.

“People think that because we’re civil servants, we’re not supposed to have a nice place to work, but I contest that with everybody I meet,” says Gann. “We are architects. And whether in government or not, you can design a facility within a budget that meets all requirements and is still an outstanding place to work. And this facility is a perfect example.”

Fighting the ‘War on Drugs’
The purpose of the FAA Civil Aviation Registry, is to register and maintain the records of all civil (non-military) aircraft and to certify and register all civil pilots. These records are currently kept on microfilm and microfiche.

Construction of the $8.5 million building was included in the 1988 Anti-Drug Abuse Act so the agency could update record-keeping and retrieval systems to aid in the federal government’s “War on Drugs.” If, for example, a plane of a suspicious nature flies into United States air space, federal officials are able to contact the registry building for immediate access to the aircraft maintenance records to see if the plane has been modified in a way that could be used to conceal drugs.

“This building’s purpose is to house the technology for an Optical Storage & Retrieval System (OSRS) and the additional employees who will be needed to convert the information from the microfilm and microfiche system to the OSRS,” says Gann. “And to consolidate registry employees from different facilities into one.”

The OSRS, still in procurement, uses laser technology to store up to 50,000 pages of documents on a 12-in. disc. The storage and retrieval system is known as a “jukebox” because it is about the same size, and it uses a robotic device to retrieve discs in a similar fashion. Each box stores 280 discs, taking the place of about 30 or 40 file cabinets. Information can be retrieved instantly via computer terminal.

Shielded from Radar
The registry building shares the campus with FAA Academy – the school for future air traffic controllers. In training the traffic controllers, the Academy performs radar sweeps of the sky.

Protecting the registry building’s high-tech OSRS equipment from the radar’s electromagnetic fields (EMF) was a significant challenge for both the FAA and Frankfurt Short Bruza.

The current solution to the radar problem is to use a method called “blanking,” where the radars shut off as they sweep across the campus. But whenever there is new construction, FAA architects look at other ways to offset EMF. One method is to build a facility that acts as an EMF shield. For the registry building, architects used the metal skin and windowless design to create the shield.

The facility uses metal to reflect EMF and to serve as a conduit to transmit and ground unwanted electrical energy. Gaps the size of pin holes would damage the building’s integrity. So Haven Mankin, Frankfurt Short Bruza architect, paid special attention to small details in the design and construction of the building.
“In order to have a cost-effective building that stayed within budget, we used standard components but incorporated the proper details in the joinery of the materials to make it work electronically,” Mankin says.

Gaskets with metal braiding sealed metal panels without breaking the conduit. Where gaskets couldn’t be used, conductive tape sealed joints. Brass was used for weather stripping on entrance doors. Two sets of main entrance doors in the vestibule are spread far enough apart so that in most cases one set of doors would be closed when entering or leaving the building. Since it’s impossible to constantly shield the entrance, absorptive materials were used for the vestibule’s walls.

To read more on this article please download the PDF.

Grand Finale – Oklahoma State Capitol Dome

For most of the 20th century Oklahoma’s state capitol remained “unfinished,” the majestic cast-in-place concrete dome its designers envisioned never built. But as Oklahoma approached its centennial – to be celebrated in 2007 – a new spotlight was trained on the incomplete structure, and efforts to construct the dome finally gained momentum. At long last Oklahomans would complete their state capitol – with one important distinction: the dome they would build in the 21st century would be constructed with a steel superstructure.

By Gene O. Brown, P.E., and Timothy J. Dolf, P.E.

Oklahoma became a state in 1907, and by means of a special session of the Oklahoma legislature and a statewide election on December 16, 1910, legislators and voters overwhelmingly chose to make Oklahoma City rather than Guthrie the capital. The Capitol Commission was formed to oversee the construction of the state capitol there. The noted architecture firm Solomon Layton and S. Wemyss Smith was selected to design the structure, and 8 acres (3.2 ha) of farmland several miles northeast of the downtown area were donated as the site of Oklahoma’s new government seat.

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The plans developed by the architects in 1914 favored a neoclassical design and called for the reinforced-concrete structure to be crowned with a 140 ft (42.7 m) cast-in-place concrete dome. Unfortunately, World War I had begun, and the money, labor, and materials needed to fully complete the structure were diverted to the war effort. As a stopgap solution, a saucer dome – a cast-in-place concrete dome that, viewed from the interior of the building, gave the appearance of a shallow dome – was put in place. Commission meeting minutes reveal, however, that commissioners considered the idea of construction the saucer dome from steel to facilitate later demolition. Ground was broken on July 14, 1914, and the state took occupancy of the building on June 30, 1917. The cost of construction had totaled just over $2 million.

In July 2000, the state’s governor, Frank Keating, announced the success of fund-raising efforts to pay for the construction of a new $21-million dome as part of the state’s centennial celebration efforts. For the better part of a century, Oklahoma’s capitol had remained “unfinished,” the only state capitol in the United States originally designed with a dome not to have one. At a ceremony on June 20, 2001, at which he gave the order to raise the dome’s first structural column, Keating observed that “the dome is a symbol of the new Oklahoma, the prosperous Oklahoma – a symbol that Oklahoma can complete what it starts.”

Backed by private donations, the Oklahoma Department of Central Services began to develop the project, the state’s first major design/build contract. The new dome was designed and engineered by Frankfurt-Short-Bruza Associates, P.C., an architecture, engineering, and planning firm located in Oklahoma City. The new dome was constructed by Capitol Dome Builders, a joint venture of Manhattan Construction Company and Flintco, Inc., both of Oklahoma City. Statehood Day – November 16, 2002 – was seen as a fitting date for the dedication ceremonies. The construction team determined that 19 months would be required for construction, which meant that construction had to begin by April 2001. Such a schedule allowed only six months for site investigation, architectural design, and engineering.

The initial efforts of the design/build team were directed toward verifying the findings of the feasibility studies carried out before the fund-raising efforts. Thanks primarily to the Oklahoma Historical Society’s meticulous preservation of the original ink-on-linen construction drawings, project specifications, construction photographs, and Capitol Commission meeting minutes, this verification process was not as complicated as it might have been. Although the construction documents would be considered incomplete by today’s standards, they proved to be an invaluable resource during both the investigative phase and the design process. The original documents included just 1 structural drawing and 5 architectural drawings for the dome; by contrast, 71 drawings were required to fully develop and construct the dome.

Continue reading “Grand Finale – Oklahoma State Capitol Dome” →

Positively Impacting Education Through Design

Educational Research Design Symposium

About the Symposium
This symposium gave attendees the opportunity to interact with students, educators, administrators, architects and engineers, interior designers, IT specialists, and others focused exclusively on learning environments. In this ever changing society, the goal is to create spaces that allow students to flourish in their environments. The idea is to promote a broader view of issues related to learning environments. This was a great opportunity to enjoy the latest in educational facility design.

Positively Impacting Education Through Design
• Uniting Education & Architecture
• Safe & Secure Environments
• Holistic Healthy Environments that Inspire
• Creativity & Collaboration

Four student teams presented their project design concept and learning objectives with the following information:
• What is the space intended to do?
• How did you solve the objective?
• How does the space transform learning?
• How did your team collaborate?

Charrette Design Objective – Create an Innovative Learning Environment For 2025:
• What does it look like?
• How does learning happen?
• How does education practices and architectural space work in unison?
• How does this space transform learning?
• Environment must accommodate 37 learners.

FIRST PLACE – TEAM 2
The Learning Environment (LE) Team 2 designed is a learning hub supporting both individual and collaborative learning. It is designed as several functional units that can be assembled together as an integrative structure and fit into a given space. It is like a kit, the user can use whichever pieces to create their own LE, depending on the conditions of the space provided.

The learning idea of a mobile class room close to nature is exceptional. This set up should have an impact on the mindset of the students to engage them in learning more, it also creates an amalgam between the nature and the students and thus breaks the traditional class room concept surrounded by walls and windows.

“This solution was very ambitious and used the notion of a learning environment to the fullest extent by terming it a “whole learning environment.” The components were nicely thought out and each one was tied t educational concepts and learning styles.”
– JURY COMMENTS

Community by design

OKLAHOMA CITY – When the Frankfurt-Short-Bruza architecture firm was awarded the contract to design the south Oklahoma City Senior Health and Wellness Center, Project Architect Allen Brown said his first priority was meeting with NorthCare, the organization that will operate the facility.

jr_maps3-senior-center-2-exterior-view-3_2-20-15t — Above, Dallas-based Moody Nolan architecture firm was the design consultant group, as it has worked on several senior wellness centers. The design will make use of outdoor space. Below, a view of the center from S. Walker Avenue. COURTESY RENDERINGS

The city had project requirements for all of its senior wellness centers, Brown said, but with each one having a different operator, he wanted to make sure his design would meet NorthCare’s needs. Dallas-based Moody Nolan architecture firm was the design consultant group, as it has worked on several senior wellness centers.

“We wanted to create a wellness environment where we had offerings for seniors functioning on all socioeconomic and health levels,” said Randy Tate, NorthCare CEO.

Those needs fall into three categories: healthy and high-functioning residents, people who may have a health indicator that needs to be addressed like obesity or smoking, and people with chronic diseases that need to be managed with programming.

This led Allen to design a 37,000- square-foot-facility with areas for weight training, water aerobics, computer use, art classes and socialization. There will also be an integrated health clinic with a family practice and a pharmacy. The center will sit on the west side of S. Walker Avenue, directly behind Capitol Hill High School, which is at the corner of SW Grand Boulevard and S. Walker Avenue.

The exterior features cementitious panel and wood-appearing HardiePlank.

“We didn’t want it to be too institutional,” Brown said. “We wanted it to have a little more of a residential feel. We wanted it to be low-scale and fit into the community.”

Residents will enter the center from S. Walker and immediately see a library with a computer area on the right and a cafe in front. When they turn left, they will find a reception desk. The center is divided into two parts, with the east side being for exercise, and the west for crafts and socialization events. While the building is essentially one level, there is a partial second floor with a small cardio space in the center and a walking track wrapped around it. People upstairs can see down into the lobby area.

On the east side, residents can swim in the hybrid pool, work out in a group fitness class in the 3,300-square-foot area, lift weights in the 2,005-square-foot weight room, hang out in the game room, and get ready for their next event in the locker rooms. On the west side residents can find a 2,027-square-foot multipurpose room, an arts and craft area with a kiln room, a health clinic, a demonstration kitchen, and an area for people who are suffering from memory loss and their loved one wants to use the center.

“Everything is open and social, not behind walls,” Allen said.

The interior will feature bright colors, both on the walls and on the furniture, pulling from the Hispanic influence of the area. NorthCare hasn’t forgotten the Hispanic population either, and it contracted with a corporate bilingual specialist to hire bilingual staff members at the facility. The center’s signage will be printed in Spanish as well.

The activities will not be confined to the building’s walls. The two wings will each have doors to the back courtyard with a large yard. It will have a fire pit, a barbecue area, and raised beds for a community garden. The nearby tennis courts, which are used by the high school, will be refinished and shared by the center and the school. The center will also have a path for the residents to walk to the trail at Hosea Vinyard Park.

The project is still going through final design stages. Construction documents are expected to be approved by the City Council in July, with construction slated to start in September. The center should be complete by late fall 2016.

Elevations: Chickasaw Nation Visitor Center

By: Molly M. Fleming

Extending a Warm Welcome

SULPHUR – Visitors to the Chickasaw National Recreation Area in south-central Oklahoma will soon be able to learn more about the tribe and the park in one convenient stop. The Chickasaw Nation Visitor Center has been designed by the Frankfurt-Short-Bruza architectural firm of Oklahoma City. It will be at the intersection of Highway 7 and Highway 177, on the south side of the Artesian Hotel.

“We’ve been doing Native American work for the past decade,” said Fred Schmidt, principal of FSB. “This project builds on that. It’s a small project with very unique characteristics.”

One of those characteristics is an expected Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, or LEED, Gold certification. he building will have many eco-friendly aspects, including its utilization of water. The center will use any rainwater for its sprinkler system. Water from the sinks will be used in the toilets before being sent out of the building.

final-cn-visitor-center-june-13-2012 — The Chickasaw Nation Visitor Center will have eco-friendly features. COURTESY RENDERING

The 8,000-square-foot building will include rich materials that draw on influences from nature and surrounding buildings. Some of the materials include copper panels on the exterior and natural stone floors. Building designers drew some architectural influences from the Chickasaw government buildings and cultural center.

“It’s contemporary, but has a lot of natural elements at the same time,” said Jason Holuby, senior associate at FSB. “We wanted the primary tie to be with the park.”

Schmidt said once the building is complete, they plan to it for design awards.

The center will be the home of information for visitors to the Chickasaw National Recreation Area, as well as offices for the recreation area. The offices are used by staff members who manage tourism at the park.

Holuby said one of the challenges with the project was an 8-foot slope on the property. This slope actually worked in the favor of the designers because it allowed the office space to be built at a lower level than the visitor center amenities. The extra height of the building will allow visitors to see directly into the park. The front windows open to a view of the Chickasaw National Recreation Area.

The offices will be on the lower floor. The top floor will feature a gallery of Chickasaw Nation artwork and historical information. There will also be seating available for park visitors who need a rest. Kiosks will be spread throughout the top floor to provide information to visitors.

“People will be able to visit the kiosks to help plan their visit to the park,” Holuby said.

A gift shop will be on the top floor. People can buy gifts from the park or the Chickasaw Nation. Visitors can learn about the Chickasaw Nation in the video presentation room. The lower floor will include office space, a shared break room and a conference room.

The building is nearly 80-percent complete and is expected to open in July. The project has been in the works for nearly nine months.

These Walls: Thunderbird Chapel Tradition of Worship

BY KIRBY LEE DAVIS

jr_thunderbird-chapel_original_091012 — The chapel was designed to capture the look and feel of Camp Gruber’s original churches. PHOTO BY RIP STELL

BRAGGS – It resembles something from an old movie set: a white frontier church, its steeple stretching 57 feet into the prairie sky.

“It stands very prominent amongst the trees,” architect Glenn Short said of Camp Gruber’s nearly 10,500-square-foot Thunderbird Chapel. “It’s sited so that it will look towards the barracks facilities and their future barracks.”

That’s a key point since the chapel, opened this spring, serves as Gruber’s only dedicated sanctuary — its first since that Oklahoma National Guard post was reactivated in 1977.

It wasn’t always that way. As one of 84 U.S. military training camps launched from 1941 to 1942, the Braggs complex grew to have 14 churches among its 1,000-plus buildings. But with the camp’s 1947 decommissioning, nearly all of those structures, including all of the churches, were either taken down or relocated.

It took Gov. Mary Fallin’s 2010 election to change that. When she learned of the camp’s deficiency, Fallin formed a commission to give Gruber a dedicated sanctuary this year, so that Oklahoma soldiers returning home from overseas service would have a place to help them find peace.

“We had some people that worked 14 to 15 hours a day, seven days a week, to keep it on schedule,” said Shepherd, president of Oklahoma Roofing and Sheet Metal. “The Associated General Contractors, they were a big help. I went to them again and again and again.”

Short, a principal with Frankfurt-Short-Bruza Associates, designed the structure to capture the look and feel of Camp Gruber’s original churches — wood-framed 1920s prairie chapels, with exposed wood trusses, stained-glass windows and exterior stone skirts.

Starting with existing designs FSB had crafted for prison chapels, Short and his team adapted their plans to fit Shepherd’s construction techniques and materials. For example, instead of stone, Thunderbird Chapel has brick veneer around its exterior base, which workers from Landmark Homes installed in a day.

“They showed up that morning at daylight and worked until midnight, working under pickup lights to keep it on schedule,” Shepherd said.

And that marked just one example of sacrificial efforts by volunteers seeking to help get the project done.

“Everybody stepped up,” Shepherd said. “They knew who it was for and they believed in it. Man, they gave me everything they had.”

Thunderbird Chapel ended up twice the size of Short’s prison chapels, to accommodate weddings, banquets and other gatherings.

“As you enter, it’s got a nice lobby,” said Short. “It’s got a very beautiful auditorium, with the trusses exposed.”

Short and his team adapted the site’s native trees into Thunderbird Chapel’s master plan, with involves a planned monument made of stone recovered from the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, site of the Oklahoma City bombing.

“Off to one side we have a memorial area,” he said. “We call it a memorial garden. It’s still to be constructed. It will have a pond and a fountain and memorial plaques to the National Guard members who have sacrificed their lives since 1911.”

Factoring in the donated materials, labor and funds raised, Shepherd estimated that the project cost would come in at about $2.2 million. Both he and Short credited these efforts as support of our troops.

“Some of them have committed their all,” Short said. “They’re over there basically defending what America stands for. My satisfaction is being able to contribute to what they do.”

Designing facilities that save lives

The numbers are staggering. On any given night, about 300 people are living on the street in Oklahoma City. Sadly, a number of these individuals are considered chronically homeless. They’ve lived a difficult life on the street, in some cases more than a decade. Many struggle with mental illness or addiction, and some are veterans affected by post-traumatic stress disorder.

The Homeless Alliance is a nonprofit in Oklahoma City working to end long-term homelessness. The organization’s passionate executive director, Dan Straughan, said he is confident the organization’s new housing center represents a huge step in the right direction. And, he says he knows the new center is already saving lives.

“We’ve figured out what any five-year-old could have told us if asked about the answer to homelessness,” Straughan said. “They would say ‘It’s houses right?’ And that is right, the answer is providing a broad array of housing options that fit the diverse needs of the population you’re trying to serve.”

When The Homeless Alliance began the search for the right architecture and engineering firm to design affordable housing on its WestTown campus near downtown Oklahoma City, they were looking for a team that understood the issue and wanted to join the push to eradicate homelessness in Oklahoma City. The firm had to have an inherent respect for the homeless, and a desire to build an uplifting center where residents would have easy access to counseling, health care, meals and many other resources, Straughan noted.

“We took presentations from several different architecture firms. FSB’s presentation was brief and in the rest of the allotted time they wanted us to tell them what we wanted. That was not what the other presenters did,” Straughan said. “Through the course of working through the design, FSB was very attentive to the specialized needs that a nonprofit has. FSB was really creative about helping us find ways to keep ongoing maintenance and operating costs really low, which was a big deal to us.”

In what Straughan describes as a two-way education process, the Homeless Alliance outlined the unique elements a housing center for the recently homeless should include. FSB responded with a practical and bright design that resembles a college dorm, with 20 single occupancy 250-square-foot rooms and a large community living area featuring floor-to-ceiling windows and a soaring roof to maximize natural light and inspire interaction.

The housing center, open since September, incorporates geothermal energy to cut long-term energy costs, and is finished with durable fixtures that are inexpensive to replace.

“It’s very simple, but functional industrial architecture,” said Rob Brown, FSB architect for the project. “We used pre-engineered metal structures as a starting point, which are durable and helped us keep construction costs low. The idea was to adapt that type of building system into something that was more architectural.”

Thelma Gaylord Emergency Shelter for Women

For FSB, designing buildings for nonprofits brings a sense of professional and personal fulfillment, particularly when architects can see their work as contributing to saving lives, said John Osborne, an FSB architect who served as the director of design for the YWCA’s Thelma Gaylord Emergency Shelter for women and children experiencing domestic abuse. Prior to September 2015, when the new shelter opened, the YWCA was using a converted motel that was too small, lacked adequate security and had not been updated since the late 80s.

“Now they have additional security features including a privacy fence, as well as two layers of security gates to prevent cars from driving onto the property without permission,” Osborne said. “This new shelter almost doubles the capacity of the previous facility and includes more counseling and advocacy space.”

ywca_gaylord-shelter_interior-lobby_oklahoma-city-ok YWCA CEO Jan Peery, said Oklahoma currently ranks sixth in the nation for women killed by men and that, in domestic violence situations, shelters are the closest thing a community has to homicide prevention. The Thelma Gaylord emergency shelter is the only certified women’s shelter in the county and serves about one fourth of the state’s total population.

“FSB have been partners and supported us for many years, so they were familiar with our work and the trauma that is part of the journey for our clients,” Peery said. “The environment itself creates a sense of peace and healing and that is critical when you are working with individuals traumatized by violence. It’s everything from the intercoms in the rooms to the wide corridors. People need to feel safe because only after this can they finally let their guard down and actually start absorbing some of the therapeutic services we have to offer to help them.”

In the months since the shelter has opened its doors, Peery said she’s already seen the facility playing a role in the recovery process for clients. A playground in the central courtyard provides a safe, protected space for children. Their mothers can receive advocacy and case management while maintaining a direct line of sight through a window into the children’s activity area. The emergency shelter is all at once strong fortress and a restorative temporary home.

“For me, working on this project brought tremendous personal fulfilment knowing I used my skills as an architect to provide a protective, respectful space for women and their children to find safety and support,” Osborne said.

“During the last 30 years working in the domestic violence movement I have toured more than 200 domestic violence shelters, homeless shelters, and transitional housing facilities across the United States. The design, functionality, and aesthetics of the YWCA’s new shelter in Oklahoma City puts it in a category of ONE, said Casey Guinn, President, Alliance for HOPE International. Frankfurt Short Bruza’s work created the most impressive housing facility I have ever seen. The YWCA’s facility speaks life, honor, respect and hope into the lives of survivors and their children as soon as they enter its doors. The passion and giftedness of the architectural team allowed them to take the values of the domestic violence prevention movement and integrate them into the actual layout, design, and flow of the shelter in a way that will produce hope and healing for thousands of survivors for decades.” Congratulations on a job well done.”

For more information about the Homeless Alliance’s housing center and other resources visit homelessalliance.org. For more information about the Oklahoma City YWCA’s emergency shelter and its other services visit ywcaokc.org.

Interested in learning more, contact Laure Majors at busdev@fsb-ae.com or call her direct at 405.840.2931.

The Discovery Process: Design by Collaboration

Creating a collaborative environment amongst stakeholders is a key strategy to designing a new building or redefining existing spaces. FSB has developed a specialized design workshop process – FSB Design Discovery Lab – that creates a partnership between an owner, and the design team, resulting in highly successful projects.

Collaboration Session: Capitol Restoration Committee members, key stakeholders, art historians, collection curators, historical preservationists and representatives from the design-build team.

FSB Design Discovery Lab
A Design Discovery Lab is a collective, partnering exercise, between all stakeholders and the design team. These forums are work sessions that explore facility uses, defines user needs and experiences, and ultimately outline a strategic design direction for the space. The Discovery Lab promotes critical thinking, communication, creative problem solving and collaboration. Intersecting thoughts and ideas, from varying stakeholder points of view, provides opportunities to assess, engage, agree or disagree on important project issues – which is essential to significantly strengthening final project outcomes.

FSB’s Discovery Labs enable the entire team – stakeholders and designers – to:

Share knowledge
New and innovative thinking will remain unrealized unless there are opportunities to shape ideas by involving all key players.

Create community
Providing an open forum to talk about stakeholder roles in a project opens doors to forming partnerships – that may not have existed – and promotes collaboration beyond the workshop.

Facilitate decision-making
An essential first step in successfully designing a new space is to establish expectations, define purpose and outline the process that will be needed to meet the goals. Establishing common ground is key to encouraging stakeholders to work together and, in the end, reach consensus.

FSB’s signature approach to defining a client’s needs, through a collaborative Discovery Lab environment, was recently demonstrated on the Oklahoma State Capitol Building Interior Restoration Project. As part of this project, FSB and Capitol Design Team are redefining the visitor experience. Fred Schmidt, FSB principal and project leader, recently facilitated a Discovery Lab that provided the design framework for this aspect of this highly visible and historically significant project.
Held in FSB’s newly designed Team Lab space, this five hour, collaboration session included Capitol Restoration Committee members, key stakeholders, art historians, collection curators, historical preservationists and representatives from the design-build team.

Fred Schmidt, FSB principal and project leader, facilitating a Discovery Lab

Brainstorming and Creative Thinking Focus:

The New Context of the Capitol’s Visitors Level Current Visitor Experience
Pros: what’s working well with the current experience?
Cons: what’s not working as well?

If These Walls Could Talk
What do you want the architecture to say to the visitor?
What do you want the initial thoughts of the visitor to be?
What is the one thing you would like a visitor to remember at the conclusion of their visit?

Big Picture Ideas – Defining Form and Function
What are the performance requirements that will shape the building design?
What are the issues that will affect building shape?

Telling a Story
What is the symbolism that creates a connection?
What is important to creating a progression of experiences?
How can we connect the visitor to the space being “theirs”?

This is your state
This is your state house
This is your place of government
This is your state’s story

How can we demonstrate that this is where Oklahoma Government history is made?
Who do we want to showcase: famous men, famous women?

Upon completion of the Design Lab, all participants emerged with a clear vision of the goals and objectives for the new visitor center. A detailed story line to guide the desired visitor experience was established, providing the design team with the needed direction to pursue creative architectural solutions.

The FSB Design Discovery Lab allows owners to:

participate in a collaborative workshop setting
visually ‘see’ and represent the project prior to formal design
be involved in creating their own spaces in collaboration with the design team
obtain buy-in to both the project and business objectives
express their experiences – increased understanding and empathy from the design team
reduce stakeholder conflicts and factions working in silos
make better strategic decisions and reach stakeholder consensus and commitment
define and support synergies in inter-disciplinary strategies
create cross-functional team development, understanding and learning
generate enthusiasm and positive energy towards the project

If you are interested in learning more about how the Design Discovery Lab experience can benefit your project or want to learn more about the Oklahoma State Capitol Building Interior Restoration Project, visit us at fsb-ae.com or contact Fred Schmidt at 405.840.2931.

For more information regarding restoration of the Oklahoma State Capitol, visit any of the following sites:

OK Capitol Restore OK Dept of Tourism Oklahoma Arts Council: Art at the Capitol Oklahoma Historical Society