Historic Façade Retained at Stanford Building 160

Building 160, one of the original ornate sandstone buildings that make up the Quad at Stanford University, is under renovation.

The entire interior is being gutted and removed, but the historic arcade with its graceful arches and columns has been retrofitted and retained.

Built in 1898 as the Stanford Library, Building 160 is being redeveloped as the Wallenberg Learning Center. Originally featuring interior sandstone arches, marble columns sculptures and stained glass windows, the walls have been stripped.

General Contractor Hathaway Dinwiddie put up massive bracing on the outside of the building, gutted its interior and essentially built a new building inside the existing walls.

However, great care was taken to preserve the exterior arcade walls. The original buildings, connected by continuous arcades, form the Main Quad – the heart of the campus.

The interior survived the 1906 earthquake, but when it was converted into the Law School in the 1940s. The lofty ceilings and open spaces were removed and two new floors were added. The sandstone and marble work was either damaged and removed or covered up with concrete.

Since that first renovation more than 50 years ago, the interior has changed so drastically that San Francisco-based architects, Skidmore, Owings and Merrill determined it was impossible to retain the original character.

The decaying carved sandstone columns needed to have the core drilled out so that these could be internally reinforced. These columns could not be removed to do the retrofit. The only way to get the necessary supporting steel bars into place through the columns was to drill directly down into the center block between the columns. Redwood City concrete subcontractors Nichols Concrete Cutting is performing this work.

The inner stone layer of the arcade was carefully removed and each stone marked and salvaged for reuse after the walls were reinforced with a steel curtain and then shotcreted.

“We had to remove the core of the sandstone block, leaving only 2 inches on either side,” explained Larry Weber, Nichols executive director.

“The decorative blocks were so delicate, we knew we could not drill the way we normally do – we had to go straight down in one continuous action. We manufactured a special drill bit for this job so we could drill right through the columns without breaking them.”

Once the column had been drilled, the hole had to be extended down into the foundations and up into the arched wall, to make space for the tube steel that creates stronger support for both arches and walls.

The $15 million project is slated for completion in August 2002.

 

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