This article originally appeared on ENR.
With construction of its new Activities Community Wellness Building, George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., adds a facility that not only meets current needs, but also is designed to be flexible for future uses.
When it opens in August, the 25,000-sq-ft building will serve as the school’s first dedicated practice facility for its pep band, The Green Machine, which is regarded by the National Collegiate Athletic Association as one of the best pep bands in the country.
The facility will also offer space for indoor sports, student programming, and events.
“This is truly a students-come-first building,” Rose Pascarell, vice president for university life, said in a press release following project groundbreaking in June 2024. “It’s really about listening to the needs of students who have consistently said to us: ‘We want more space to gather. We want to be able to come together more easily. We want to engage with each other.’ Which is exactly what we know is part of the magic sauce of George Mason and actually the secret sauce of student success and student retention.”
Somewhat Temporary
Contracted under a design-build delivery method, the team of Hoar Construction, Powers Brown Architecture, and IMEG Corp. set out in 2023 to devise an economical solution that met the university’s needs for new programming spaces.
Working within an $11-million budget, the team did not envision a traditional concrete or steel structure. Instead, the university aimed for a “somewhat temporary” structure, says David Rowson, senior project manager at Powers Brown.
“They weren’t looking for a forever building on campus,” he says. “They went with lighter construction.”
“You could literally take apart bits and pieces of it.”
—David Rowson, Senior Project Manager, Powers Brown Architecture
The final concept creates a central concrete structure flanked by two tent structures that extend from opposite sides. The tent structures are cold-formed steel framing wrapped in tensioned fabric. The concept is similar to bubble designs often used over pools, tennis courts, and practice fields, but more robust, Rowson says. One significant difference is that, unlike a bubble, a tent structure can provide vertical clearance within a tight footprint, which he says enabled the team to maximize use of the 2.8-acre site.
At first, Rowson says the design aimed to take advantage of the translucence of the white tensioned fabric. “Our initial design let a lot of light get in and out,” he recalls. “So, during the day, the space would be almost naturally lit by daylight. But then at nighttime, when it’s lit up, it would sort of emanate a glow from the tent structure, so it could serve as a kind of a beacon on campus.”
However, as the project evolved, Rowson says the university decided it wanted to condition the spaces so they would be comfortable for students during both the hot summer months and the cold winters. As a result, the team took the unusual step of installing an additional layer of tensioned fabric to the interior side of the tent frame.
Between the two layers of fabric, insulation was added, including spray insulation on the steel members.
Student Spaces
The central concrete structure features an entryway with vestibule, a front desk, multiple offices, a kitchenette, four activity rooms, and a utility room.
Rowson says that in addition to providing the opportunity to create smaller enclosed spaces, the concrete structure also serves as a fire break.
The new facility’s tent spaces are designed to house intramural and recreational basketball games as well as serve as the dedicated facility for the university’s pep band practices. The structure will include a full-size NCAA basketball court as well as additional courts for basketball and volleyball games.
“This is truly a students-come-first building.”
— Rose Pascarell, Vice President of University Life, George Mason University
While the facility fits the university’s current program, the design gives George Mason the flexibility to remove the tent structures later and build a more permanent facility. The university could also develop the 48-foot-tall concrete structure as a stand-alone building. The structure currently only uses the ground floor. Above the drop ceiling, a space more than 30 ft high is available as future shell space.
“You could literally take apart bits and pieces of it,” Rowson says. “You could take a whole tent and move it someplace else, if you wanted.”
After completing design in spring 2024, the team started construction. Given that work had to be complete in just over a year, the team had to focus on long-lead items, such as switch gear.
“We made some assumptions early that this building is not going to use more than 2,000 amps,” says Nam Ngo, project manager with Hoar Construction. “So we were very careful during design not to exceed that.”
Conditioned Spaces
The spaces needed to be conditioned to 68 degrees for heating and 72 degrees for cooling. The system is designed with three rooftop units for heating and cooling—one for each tent space and one for the concrete structure.
“The design team had to be creative in sizing the units appropriately to meet those requirements and [in terms of] coming up with ideas for how to encapsulate this space so that heat and cooling don’t just dissipate,” Ngo says.
The site was previously home to other campus structures, including several temporary modular buildings. As a result, the team had to contend with some existing utilities before creating the slab-on-grade foundation, Ngo says.
“Our initial worry was the abandoned utilities buried on site,” he says. “But we had our geotechnical engineer do some boring, and the soils were pretty good.”
A large stormwater retention system provided by Ohio-based Advanced Drainage Systems Inc.—a manufacturer of high-performance thermoplastic corrugated pipe, water management and drainage products—was added next to the building footprint.
The system created a large berm, which further constrained the amount of space available for laydown of materials and staging. Throughout the project, just-in-time delivery had to be used.
Concrete Core
Early on, the team needed to focus on the concrete structure. Ngo says the team used tilt-up construction to help save money for George Mason and shorten the overall construction timeline. The 12 panels were cast on site and lifted into place with a crawler crane.
The team had to carefully design block-out openings in the concrete walls for ductwork, piping, and other utilities. Due to the small footprint, only one crane could be used on site at a time. As panels were erected, steel framing work followed behind, requiring extensive coordination.
With the central structure in place, crews began building the tents from the concrete walls out. Fabric was stretched across the frame, and ratchet straps were used to tension the fabric. The crew added insulation and utilities to the walls, then the second layer of fabric was stretched to enclose the system.
Despite extensive planning to meet the aggressive schedule, crews faced challenges. Bad weather days hampered progress throughout construction of the concrete structure and the tents, forcing crews to work weekends.
There were also delays in getting power to the building that prevented the structure from being conditioned.
“There was a lot of risk associated with that,” Ngo says. “We had experience in the past with installing drop ceilings into a space without power, and ultimately, everything warped and the ceiling had to be replaced. So we had that conversation with the university. That also held up flooring, cabinets, and countertops.”
As a result, the completion date was moved from the spring to August, in time for students’ arrival for the fall semester—marking the Activities Community Wellness Building as the first facility on campus adorned with George Mason’s new logo, an interlocking G and M unveiled in April as part of the school’s rebranding campaign.
“If anything personifies our students, our diversity, our rich heritage, our innovation, our spirit, it actually is the Green Machine,” Gregory Washington, university president, said at the project groundbreaking ceremony. “So having that entity have a focal point, a centerpiece, a gathering point, a rallying point, is probably one of the most important things we can do.”
Ngo says he understands the impact a project like this can have on campus. He graduated from GMU with a master’s in civil engineering in 2020, and the Activities Community Wellness Building project is the first one he has run as a project manager for Hoar Construction.
“It’s cool to be able to build new things for the university,” he says. “You can really see how thoughtful GMU is about their community. They are building this for the band. They are thinking about the community. It’s not just another profit center.”
