Design Vault Ep. 22 Lawrenceville School with Daniela Holt Voith

TRANSCRIPT

00;00;00;02 - 00;00;05;07

Doug Pat (DP)

Let's go inside the vault. The design vault.

 

00;00;05;10 - 00;00;30;11

Daniela Holt Voith (DHV)

Part of our design philosophy is to really make more of a home, both in terms of individual buildings, but also in terms of the context. And this design really is right up our alley in the sense that we love to combine mission and image. There is a strong mission to get the dining hall, which is for the fifth formers, a chance to rebond.

 

00;00;30;13 - 00;03;05;12

DP

This is my guest, Daniela Holt Voith. I'll share more about her shortly. In this episode from the Design Vault, we highlight Voith and MacTavish Architects Abbott Dining Hall in Lawrenceville, New Jersey. The Abbott Dining Hall is located at the Lawrenceville School in Lawrenceville, New Jersey. The renovation of the 1960s era dining hall exclusively serves senior or fifth form students in their last year on campus.

 

The project responds to the style of the adjacent upper house dorm and other Peabody and Sterns architecture and reminds one of both Shingle Style and Richardsonian Romanesque architecture. VMA’s reconfiguration blends seamlessly into the Lawrenceville esthetic with new brick facades, pitch slate roof and vaulted interior ceilings supported by glulam hammer beam trusses. In addition to a complete redesign of the kitchen and servery, custom white oak furniture and booth seating clad the interior, white oak paneling, terrazzo floor and over scaled fireplaces complete the vision.

 

Hi, I'm Doug Pat and this is Design Vault. Daniela Holt Voith is an architect and founding principle of Voith and MacTavish Architects and Director of Design. She holds degrees from Yale University School of Architecture and Bryn Mawr College. Since the early 1980s, she's taught at Yale University as a TA, University of Pennsylvania, Drexel University, and has developed and taught Bryn Mawr College's Design Studio program.

 

Mayor Michael Nutter appointed her to serve on the city's award winning 2008 zoning code Commission, which revised the city's 50-year-old zoning code. Danielle is currently president of the Institute for Classical Architecture and Art, Philadelphia Chapter director of the Carpenters Company of Philadelphia and Board member of the Design Leadership Foundation. Daniela has dedicated her career to promoting the advancement of design for educational environments.

 

Her client-focused practice supports leading edge pedagogical thought and encourages mindful ways of living and learning. Daniela loves to travel, bike and ride trains. She speaks French and German, travels frequently and collects early 20th century train lithographs. So welcome, Daniela. It's nice to have you with us today. So tell us a little bit about Voith and MacTavish Architects or VMA in Philadelphia.

 

So where in the city are you guys located? What's the size of the firm? How long has it been around and what type of work do you do?

 

00;03;05;15 - 00;03;41;14

DHV

Our firm has been celebrating its 35th year this year. We are located just on the edge of Center City on the Schuylkill River. So we have fabulous views of the river and city skyline. We are about 40 people, I think maybe 41 just this minute. And our primary focus is on design for education from pre-K to post-collegiate. But that encompasses a wide range of services, preservation, planning, architecture, as well as we have an interior studio and a wide range of projects, which is why this client type is so exciting for me.

 

00;03;41;19 - 00;03;45;14

DP

Interesting. So the firm size has grown over the years, I would assume.

 

00;03;45;17 - 00;03;55;08

DHV

Yes, we started off as two people and now our, as I said, almost 40. We actually grew during the pandemic. I have no explanation for it.

 

00;03;55;11 - 00;03;58;08

DP

That's incredible. And was that mainly in school work?

 

00;03;58;13 - 00;04;33;09

DHV

Almost exclusively, we do architecture planning, interiors and preservation, and we service school work primarily, but we do other work for other institutions, primarily nonprofit. For example, we're just completing a almost 100,000 square foot renovation of some factory buildings for an organization called Philadelphia Youth Basketball. So it has seven basketball courts, classrooms, leadership training, those sorts of facilities up in one of the more disadvantaged areas of Philadelphia.

 

00;04;33;11 - 00;04;35;10

DP

And do you guys do any residential work?

 

00;04;35;14 - 00;04;45;27

DHV

We do, actually. Thanks for asking. We just brought on three new partners, one of whom is Scott O’Barr, and he is heading up our residential studio. It's fairly new for us.

 

00;04;46;00 - 00;04;48;11

DP

Well, that's great. That's actually my, that's what I do. I do.

 

00;04;48;11 - 00;04;55;25

DHV

All right. Well, we started off doing residential but grew out of that and now we're coming back to residential again with the addition of Scott.

 

00;04;56;02 - 00;05;04;22

DP

That's great work. Good for you. So tell us a little bit about yourself. How long have you been practicing and what's your role in the office as a principal and director of design?

 

00;05;04;24 - 00;06;15;06

DHV

Well, my first job in architect's office was when I was 19 at the Architects Collaborative. I got an internship between my sophomore year and junior year at Bryn Mawr, and I loved it so much I took a year off and stayed there. Sadly, that firm doesn't exist anymore, but it was a great introduction to very high level design.

 

I graduated from architecture school in ‘81 and I've been working pretty much since I formed a partnership with my first employer, Toni Atkins. So it became Atkin Voith and Associates. So that existed for sadly only about three years. We were doing great, but somehow the relationship just wasn't going as well as it should have been. So I broke away and formed a new firm with one of the people that was an employee at the previous firm.

 

So Cameron MacTavish, who is a wonderful human being and very talented person, and I just bought him out about five years ago because he wanted to do other things and we're still great friends. That's amazing. And just this January took on three new partners. One of the people who was a partner previously, John Cluver, heads up the Preservation Studio.

 

So there are now five of us, the VMA five.

 

00;06;15;08 - 00;06;28;12

DP

Well, it sounds like your firm clearly has grown and you do wonderful work. I've been on your website and we'll talk about that a little bit later. So let's talk a little bit about this project. How did your office get the project?

 

00;06;28;15 - 00;07;12;00

DHV

Well, just as we usually do, it's a competitive business. I think we won it at the interview. The RFP was one of the most unusual ones that we've ever gotten because the brief was written about love and loyalty and how can architecture help young students form a really strong bond with a place. There is also a lot of humor involved at Lawrenceville.

 

There are a funny bunch, they love to joke, and so in our visual response that we sent in with our portfolio, we photoshopped the head and face of the CFO, who had written the RFP into almost every photo that had people in it. So he only found five of them.

 

00;07;12;02 - 00;07;13;04

DP

Where's Waldo?

 

00;07;13;07 - 00;07;28;24

DHV

It was exactly like Where's Waldo? But we tried to approach the interview in responding exactly to that. How do you create a sense of belonging and a sense of fascination and otherness in a place?

 

00;07;28;27 - 00;07;30;25

DP

So you didn't know the clients and you got the job?

 

00;07;30;26 - 00;07;31;17

DHV

That's correct.

 

00;07;31;17 - 00;07;38;05

DP

That's wonderful. Good for you. So let's talk a little bit about the history of the location you said is kind of special.

 

00;07;38;07 - 00;09;17;03

DHV

So Lawrenceville is one of the premier boarding schools in the country. It has a long tradition. Its original campus was laid out by Olmstead, and a lot of the architecture was done, as you mentioned, by Peabody and Stearns. Originally, it was laid out in a circle as many older boarding schools are. And as it grew, the planning paradigm became more oriented around quads.

 

This dining hall was built as an addition to a Peabody and Stearns dormitory. It had a flat roof, a pretty unsympathetic brick, big glass curtain wall that faced West, which you can only imagine was sun beating in at dinner time. So they pulled the curtains. So it was almost always dark. And so there was a lot to improve, but they didn't really want to diverge too much from the footprint of the building.

 

But essentially we took the building down to its foundations. We left the steel, took off the roof and kept these two side wings that are almost square and planned and put a new roof and new structure. As you mentioned, the big glulam trusses that look like heavy timber and then made a basically a six foot addition on the Western facade to create some really deep windows so that that West facing sun would get mitigated as it comes in and then really responded to the facade of the original dormitory on the other side.

 

So the facade is characterized by a round tower which forms the entry and six Romanesque arched windows, three on either side. So it has this very heavy look about its sense of gravitas.

 

00;09;17;06 - 00;09;23;05

DP

So this building really looked nothing like what it does today. Is that correct? The facades are completely new.

 

00;09;23;09 - 00;09;25;00

DHV

Completely new.

 

00;09;25;02 - 00;09;41;01

DP

So what's interesting about that, as I'm reading about your renovation 1960s building, I'm thinking this was clearly a very talented architect in the sixties. Now, that's amazing, right? So this building, he just took it down to the foundations. Okay, Now it all makes perfect sense.

 

00;09;41;01 - 00;09;41;19

DHV

Pretty much.

 

00;09;41;19 - 00;09;44;16

DP

My goodness.

 

00;09;44;16 - 00;09;47;00

DHV

It was a flat roof, 1960s building with a curtain wall.

 

00;09;47;06 - 00;09;53;05

DP

Yeah. Wow, that. Okay, that's pretty cool. So you guys know what you're doing? This thing is beautiful.

 

00;09;53;05 - 00;10;36;19

DHV

Thank you. Thank you. Well, part of our design philosophy is to really make more of a home, both in terms of individual buildings, but also in terms of the context. And this design really is right up our alley in the sense that we love to combine mission and image. As I said before, there is a strong mission to get the dining hall, which is for the fifth formers, their culminating year at the school, a chance to rebond. The school is organized so that there's a freshman dorm, but then they divide up into houses and they're in those houses for two years and then they come back together again as a class. So it's a chance to rebond.

 

00;10;36;21 - 00;10;41;22

DP

So tell me a little bit about the scope or programmatic requirements of the project from the beginning.

 

00;10;41;29 - 00;11;53;02

DHV

Right? So the dining hall seats about 250 to 300. The servery was a very old fashioned cafeteria line, which is way outdated in terms of food service. So the kitchens had to be upgraded, the servery completely renovated, the loading dock assisted and that sort of thing. So they also wanted to be able to use the room as an event space.

 

So it needed to handle various different seating configurations, a lot of AV component ends, video, that sort of thing. And they wanted to be able to clear out the room, as I said, for some events like dances. So I worked very closely with Thomas Moser. There's a fine mill worker up at Maine to develop a table. It looked like a very heavy wooden table.

 

It is a very heavy wooden table, but the top flips and you can put it up onto skateboards essentially and move them away. So it's now called the Daniela table, and it's available on their contract side if you're looking for a nesting trestle table. And that was really about it. It serves three meals a day other than the events that they do.

 

So one of the first was a wedding for the head of school, his daughter.

 

00;11;53;05 - 00;11;59;26

DP

So they must have had a decent budget for the project, right? They ended up making some custom furniture.

 

00;11;59;28 - 00;12;15;24

DHV

I think by most standards it was decent. The project in the end all in was $8 million. It's a 13,000 square foot building, so it's not incredibly expensive by residential short, but a lot of value I think, for what they invested in this building.

 

00;12;16;00 - 00;12;29;03

DP

So let's go backwards a little bit and talk about the building stylistically. So you mentioned, I mentioned earlier, Peabody and Stearns Architecture. I guess they may have been well known for shingle style architecture.

 

00;12;29;09 - 00;12;44;00

DHV

They were they were a firm of big reputation. And so I think the board members must have nabbed them from New York and brought them down to Lawrenceville. Shingle style definitely. But also this kind of masonry structures as well.

 

00;12;44;02 - 00;13;06;21

DP

So let's talk a little bit about project restrictions. So I don't know a whole lot about how to get a building built on a boarding school campus. What was that like? And are you working with the town and zoning ordinances there? And you're also working with the school and with esthetic issues. And are there any historical challenges other than trying to match certain architecture?

 

00;13;06;28 - 00;14;22;12

DHV

The zoning was easy because we were really staying pretty much within the same footprint. We're not adding impervious coverage. The construction logistics were tricky and we essentially cut a new entrance road onto the campus, a construction entrance, and fenced off the construction area. Obviously, student safety is a huge concern. Embedded into our specification are behavioral guidelines, no smoking, shirts on, no swear words.

 

There's a lot of that sort of thing that's required by most school campuses, actually. The construction needed to happen within a year. They only took that dining hall offline for just one school year, basically a real tricky part of the project was that the original contractor was somebody that we had done maybe 15 to 20 projects with, went out of business in the middle of the project.

 

So that was heartbreaking because they were such good contractors and caused a huge hiccup and because they were having such trouble, there was construction work that was done that wasn't necessarily supervised, and the school wanted some work to continue. So there was a lot of logistical issues that happened in transferring to another contractor.

 

00;14;22;19 - 00;14;27;29

DP

Did you have to hire like a construction manager to come in and help put it all back together?

 

00;14;28;01 - 00;14;48;15

DHV

No, the school, you know, was fairly sophisticated in terms of construction. Many schools are not, but there was insurance involved. And so there was insurance oversight. There was banking issues. There were a lot of things in transferring all that knowledge from one contractor to another. Not having the backup was challenging, but they did an amazing job in the end.

 

00;14;48;18 - 00;14;52;03

DP

So how long did the planning and design process take?

 

00;14;52;06 - 00;15;28;09

DHV

Probably just about a year, maybe a smidge longer. There's always that moment. We go through the design. We made models, we did beautiful drawings. There wasn't, like there often is, a hiatus for fundraising because the project was fully funded from the get go, so a single donor basically anteed up. So it was a fairly smooth process from the beginning of concept through the construction documents, the construction documents were a thing of beauty.

 

The Millwork was so detailed, the brickwork is so detailed. There is a lot to that set. I'd love to show them to you at some point.

 

00;15;28;12 - 00;15;34;22

DP

I'd love to see that. So what was the size of the team that you had working on the project?

 

00;15;34;24 - 00;15;47;17

DHV

Core team of myself, the project manager, Sennah Loftus, the architect, Andrew Lipschitz. And then there were probably two other people who were helping. So that's 5.

 

00;15;47;17 - 00;15;51;06

DP

And did you guys work in 2D and 3D?

 

00;15;51;08 - 00;16;03;20

DHV

This is a project that was done entirely in CAD so much detail that it not a lot of repetition and so many one off kinds of details that working in Revit would have hindered us.

 

00;16;03;20 - 00;16;11;29

DP

I think and you guys presented I'm assuming, drawings and ultimately maybe even models to the clients along the way. Did they enjoy that?

 

00;16;12;01 - 00;16;24;23

DHV

Of course, there's nothing like a model. So we actually made a model where we could take the roof off. The client could actually understand the roof structure and then see the space inside and then put the roof back on.

 

00;16;24;25 - 00;16;27;01

DP

Did you guys hire that out or did you make them?

 

00;16;27;01 - 00;16;43;09

DHV

We did it in-house. We have a great shop where we can do both woodworking, we have a laser cutter and also 3D printing. I think we're in the midst of phasing out the woodshop, sadly. But the other aspects of it is that prototyping is really important to us.

 

00;16;43;12 - 00;16;55;01

DP

So that's a good segway to the building esthetics. So I'm looking at some photos of the architecture. Did you guys replicate some of the archways that you found on campus and other buildings?

 

00;16;55;09 - 00;17;44;11

DHV

The main arches that are on this facade are derived directly from the front of the original dormitory. It's called Upper House. So from the upper house facade. But the curved tower entry was something that, you know, we studied Peabody and Stern a fair amount and we thought that would be appropriate. It, of course, was very tricky construction and detailing wise because not only is it curved, but we also put an arched top over the main doors.

 

So that arch is curving in elevation and in plan. Interestingly, if you flatten it out, it's actually and ellipse and the underside of the arch as you get into the door itself actually expands from the doorframe to the door head. It gets steeper because the curve is coming around.

 

00;17;44;13 - 00;17;46;09

DP

So they built formwork for that?

 

00;17;46;11 - 00;18;34;12

DHV

No? Well, I'm sure they did in terms of having an arch to lay everything up on. But the arches are actually true arches and we wanted that really deep window recess. So the brick is laid up on a facing block. So it's actually an eight inch facade on top of the structural law we have that depth really makes those arches read.

 

The arches have a stone arch on the outside. Then there's another arch on the inside that's made up of a header and a stretcher. So it's that deep. And then there's a hinge brick underneath that has a molded shape on it, basically, not quite a full round, but I guess a three quarter around section. And then it goes back into the return, which as I said, varies in depth as it goes around.

 

00;18;34;14 - 00;18;38;11

DP

Did you have any trouble finding a mason to do that work?

 

00;18;38;14 - 00;19;20;00

DHV

So we didn't find the mason, the contractors did. And the Masons on this job were really good, so we were happy. The brick is kind of a orangish red. The way we've laid it out has a very, almost monolithic feel because we picked a mortar that blends with the brick. It doesn't highlight each individual brick. So the mortar itself has that a similar coloration to the brick.

 

There's not much of just facade and it's laid up in running bond. In between the arches we have round medallions that are also made of brick. And then the center those medallions are a herringbone pattern. So there's an incredible amount of richness in the brickwork and it's highlighted by these masonry elements.

 

00;19;20;02 - 00;19;25;09

DP

I would imagine you did a lot of drawings in house of what this, ultimately, the facades were going to look like.

 

00;19;25;09 - 00;19;28;04

DHV

And then the shop drawings were amazing.

 

00;19;28;06 - 00;19;31;01

DP

And did you do many mock ups in the field?

 

00;19;31;04 - 00;19;54;24

DHV

So we did a mock up of the wall and a return. We did not do a full on mock up with the window inserted. We often do, but in this case we didn't. Tricky part was putting one of these arched openings into the existing brick of those sidings that I mentioned To start with. The brick actually is slightly different than the 1960s brick. That's the only bit of facade that remained.

 

00;19;54;27 - 00;19;59;01

DP

So the brick facade remained on those wings and then you matched?

 

00;19;59;07 - 00;20;04;06

DHV

Now we didn't match their contrasting sixties. Brick has more variation in it.

 

00;20;04;10 - 00;20;06;13

DP

It looks a little redder in the photos.

 

00;20;06;16 - 00;20;21;19

DHV

Yeah, it's just has a little bit more variation in the brick. But we tried to choose a brick that would blend both with the original Peabody and Sterns and those existing pieces of wall. I mean, in the end we could have just taken them down and started over, but we didn't.

 

00;20;21;21 - 00;20;36;24

DP

Right. You always, at least in my experience, you kind of pick and choose what you're going to keep and what you're not going to keep. And you look back, you're like, man, we probably spent more money keeping things than just tearing it down to the foundation gradually.

 

00;20;36;25 - 00;20;50;17

DHV

Absolutely. But part of the transformation of this building was not only this incredibly detailed facade, but also the very, very steeply pitched roof that's all slate. The dormers have copper on them and the tower itself has some copper on it.

 

00;20;50;19 - 00;20;55;14

DP

They must have loved that, the peak roof, the idea that they were getting rid of this flat roof.

 

00;20;55;14 - 00;21;04;21

DHV

Absolutely. I'm still hearing, I mean this was finished a number of years ago, and I still hear from people who've been on campus how amazing the space is.

 

00;21;04;24 - 00;21;13;14

DP

Let's talk a little bit about the trusses on the interior, even though they're not masonry. So in my experience those are called hammer beam trusses. Am I incorrect?

 

00;21;13;16 - 00;21;51;24

DHV

No, but basically this is a modern building and the span was fairly large. And so our engineers wanted this to be self-supporting. So they're made up of glulam pieces and then bolted together. There is a lot of concern actually by the client when they first saw the trusses go up because they weren't stained yet. And it has these heavy bolts in the plates and they're really worried that this is going to get too industrial looking.

 

And we painted the steel bits in a color that kind of calms down the contrast between the steel and the wood. And by the time the roof went on and everything else was going on, everybody's in love.

 

00;21;51;26 - 00;21;57;02

DP

You would never know. And I looked at those photos online. You'd never know there was any steel.

 

00;21;57;04 - 00;22;07;02

DHV

Yeah, it's just the balls. Sometimes we've done roofs that look like they're heavy timber but are actually steel clad. But in this case, the wood is actually self-supporting.

 

00;22;07;05 - 00;22;08;23

DP

Yeah, the interior's stunning.

 

00;22;08;26 - 00;22;09;10

DHV

Thank you.

 

00;22;09;10 - 00;22;14;21

DP

Is that one large rectangular space on the first floor other than the wing?

 

00;22;14;21 - 00;23;21;18

DHV

Yeah, other than the wings, it's not quite rectangular because the ends have sort of apses. They're angular. And so in the middle of each and there's an enormous fireplace, we pulled the base of the fireplace up off the floor so that you could see in to the fireplaces from the seated position. And then we had these incredible carvings done that are representative of themes on the campus.

 

And then, they're not wood burning their gas, but they certainly give this incredible warmth to events and the floor is made of terrazzo. And we carefully made a pattern of the terazzo. So but I said, these people are jokesters, right? And so one of the things that you can do with terrazzo, so it's imbed brass shapes into it.

 

We found a number of shapes again of animals and other things that are kind of spread through the Lawrenceville law. And then we put cockroaches on the floor. That's so there's like five or six cockroaches. So there's the question always is, well, where's the cockroach?

 

00;23;21;20 - 00;23;23;03

DP

I'd love to see that.

 

00;23;23;05 - 00;23;25;04

DHV

I can send you a photograph.

 

00;23;25;12 - 00;23;31;03

DP

Please do. So, did your team learn anything interesting through the design and construction process? Anything kind of new for you?

 

00;23;31;05 - 00;24;04;08

DHV

One of the things that we were very interested in anyway was the issue of the Western exposure. And we're a firm that is oriented towards sustainability. It kind of is part and parcel of every project that we do. And so the light mitigation was a big piece of it. So we did a number of lighting studies to see how deep we needed to make the niches to really be able to cut off the direct glare to the inside.

 

That was an interesting piece of work for us. The combination of computer modeling, lighting, simulation and facade design.

 

00;24;04;11 - 00;24;18;24

DP

Very cool. So, Daniela, you've been an architect and educator for some time. Based on what you know today about being an architect, do you have any words of advice for your younger self or maybe for young people coming up in the field today?

 

00;24;18;27 - 00;25;06;09

DHV

So everybody has to find their own selves. And I mentor a lot of women. Our office is more than 50% women. Being an architect on the job site is always a challenge. I found my own way, partially because I played a lot of basketball growing up and I played a lot of basketball with men. I already had this kind of knowledge of both teamwork, competitiveness, defensiveness, all of that all plays out in sports and then into real life.

 

But most people don't have that experience. They're not as big as tall as I am. I try and say, You're going to have to find your own way. But ultimately on the job site anyway, the person who signs the requisition for payment has the power. So I think my biggest piece of advice is learn to trust yourself and stand on your own two feet.

 

00;25;06;16 - 00;25;23;26

DP

It's great advice. When I think about myself as a young architect, a young human being for that matter, I was always looking for answers from someone else, always asking someone, How do I do this or How do I get to where I want to go? Or what do I even want to do with my life.

 

00;25;23;28 - 00;25;25;09

DHV

That only comes from inside.

 

00;25;25;15 - 00;25;36;22

DP

But it takes a long time to figure that out. And it's really nice that there are people that come alongside you and say, Hey, you know what? You have to look inside. The answers are actually all there already.

 

00;25;36;24 - 00;25;37;27

DHV

Correct. Nice way to put it.

 

00;25;38;00 - 00;25;47;18

DP

Well, I'm glad you've been there for lots of other women. So, Daniela, it's been great to have you here. Thanks for your time. Where can people go to learn more about VMA and yourself?

 

00;25;47;20 - 00;26;08;14

DHV

Our website is cumbersome in terms of its name, but its VoithandMacTavish.com. There's lots of information. If you want to know more about me, search Daniela Voith I think will get you there. You don't have to add my middle name, Holt. I even have a Wikipedia page. So there's a lot of information out there to be had about me.

 

00;26;08;20 - 00;26;12;18

DP

That's pretty cool. Well, thank you very much for your time today.

 

00;26;12;25 - 00;26;15;11

DHV

It's been a pleasure. Thank you so much for inviting me.

 

00;26;15;14 - 00;26;42;05

DP

Our pleasure.