Uncharted waters

The lakeside lines of The Calatrava had no written plan

By Jack Bess

Many of the calatrava's graceful lines were never sketched. "You couldn't get it on paper," Owner representative Chris Smoke said. Instead the means werer developed by engineers and craftsman on-site. Photos on this page: James W. Brozek; Click on photos for full image.

Like maps of old, where unknown parts of the world were left blank, the design of the Milwaukee Art Museum expansion contained at least one curved section that couldn't be put down on paper.

That was at the east end or, as it is called, the "east nose" of the building, where the football-shaped concrete ring beam lies under the glass pavilion, said Jerry Kaminski, the project executive a C.G. Schmidt Inc.

The architect went to the carpenters doing the formwork for the concrete and told them he could not complete the design of the curvature 6 feet from the tip, he said.

"The last 6 feet he just couldn't do," Kaminski said. "He went out on the job and worked with the carpenters, and they told him, 'We can do this or try that.' So the design was completed in the field. There never was a
drawing for that last piece on the east nose. You just couldn't get it on paper. You just couldn't interpret what was happening."

So it's not surprising that Chris Smocke, the owner's representative on the project, refers to venturing into the project's uncharted territory as "pioneering."

"To do the process justice, it needs to be characterized as working it out as we go," Smocke said.

Construction pioneers

Clearly falling in the pioneering category is the brise soleil, the movable sunscreen, which tops the galleria and reception hall and is composed of carbon-fiber wings ranging from 20 to 102 feet. "When we started, there was no machine in the world to make what we needed to have," Smocke said. "We needed to design and engineer a special machine just to make the longest ones."

Tests were done to determine the right material, the right thickness and weight of the material and how the wings would connect to the spines. The overall configuration of the brise soleil was given a wind-tunnel test in Toronto, and the carbon-fiber used in the fins was being tested in Chicago in early November, said Steve Chamberlin, president of C.G. Schmidt Inc., the construction manager and the contractor responsible for the concrete work.

"To be quite honest, sometimes we don't know what the final solution is going to be and we don't know what the desired result is as it related to the details because it's never been done," Chamberlin said.

The project team is taking materials that contractors work with every day-glass, concrete and steel-but using them in innovative combinations and forms. As Kaminski put it, "There are no straight lines here. Everything is curved."

'Old World craftsmanship'

The lines of communication on the project are unusual, too. Instead of the people at the highest organizational level giving directives, there's a strong spirit of cooperation and respect, with the designers and engineers seeking input from the manufacturers and builders.

And that has worked. Sometimes the key information on solving a problem comes from the craftsmen, Chamberlin said. A good example of that occurred on constructing a concrete pier with reveals, he said.

"The reveals have a radius, they're curved and as you work your way from the bottom of the pier to the top of the pier, each one has a different radius," he said. "We actually had to build plaster models. We didn't know the best
way to do it, but the carpenters figured out the best solution to arrive at the desired look the architect was looking for."

Architects and engineers weren't sure how to get the desired effect in parts of the Calatrava's concrete structure, CG Schmidt President Steve Chamberlin said. "We didn't know the best way to do it, but the carpenters figured out the best solution to arrive at the desired look the architect was looking for." Photo: James W. Brozek; Click on photo for larger image.

"It's like the Old World craftsman who used to be able to do the fancy woodwork or plaster in old churches, Kaminski said. "You need the tradesman to work with the architect in many cases to solve how something is going to be done."

Those associated with the project will note that the whole project is like a sculpture, and that each piece of the project is a sculpture also. Each piece of unusually shaped concrete has a corresponding piece of unusually shaped reinforcing steel inside it. And the "soaring concrete elements that are cantilevered out 100 feet" takes an unusual amount of reinforcing steel to hold it up.

Chamberlin said the workability of the concrete was tested by building a sample concrete arch, and that tests were also done to make sure the wet concrete could penetrate all throughout the uniquely curved wooden forms.

"That's where you need a special mix design," Chamberlin said. "You need ways to vibrate the forms and ways to, in some case, to visually check it by drilling holes as you move up the forms to be absolutely sure you have full penetration of the concrete and that it structurally and visually checks out. There's no second chance. It has to be right."

Each portion of the project poses its own challenge, and sometimes the challenge comes not only in construction but also in the sequence in which things are built.

"Santiago (Calatrava) designs things in balance but the structures are not really stable until they're 100 percent done," Kaminski said. He added, with a laugh, "If you have a 10-story building and after three floors, you can quit if you want. But in this case, you can't quit at any point because until you get the whole structure up, it's it in balance."

An example of this can be found in the interaction of the ring beam and the bridge, Kaminski said. Workers can't complete the bridge until the ring-beam concrete is poured and tension is posted in the concrete, Kaminski said, because posting tension will "pull the bridge back a certain amount, maybe a half-inch. But until you do that, you can't do the final piece on the bridge.

"You know the old adage, 'When you come to work, you leave your brain at the door and just do what you're told.' This is the exact opposite," Kaminski said. "We need people thinking all the time."