Modifications to existing floors, roof, and walls required preservation engineering and knowledge of historic structural systems to integrate new components and to quantify the ability of the existing systems to support the proposed modifications.
Photo credit: Peter Mauss/Esto.
- Photo credit: Peter Mauss/Esto.
Gilman Hall, the 1915 historic centerpiece of the Johns Hopkins University Homewood Campus, was beloved but inefficiently utilized. Today, the newly renovated building is revitalized with new occupied spaces, reclaimed volumes of library stack space, new floors for an archaeology museum, and a new glass roof within the central courtyard. The building’s Georgian-style exterior has also been restored.
The structural design at the courtyard atrium features a grid-shell glass roof structure received by horizontal steel trusses that tie into the existing historic structural systems, an innovative integration of new with old.
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Modifications to existing floors, roof, and walls required preservation engineering and knowledge of historic structural systems to integrate new components and to quantify the ability of the existing systems to support the proposed modifications.
The new construction within the atrium represented one of the greatest structural challenges in the project. Below-grade excavation was necessary to insert a mechanical room below the foundation level of the existing atrium walls and columns. Careful coordination with the geotechnical engineer allowed for the design of lateral retention of soils without underpinning.
