Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership takes shape

Chris Killian | Thursday, February 13, 2014

Construction on the Arcus Building

Hardly any structure with wooden walls, however intricate, is going to turn heads. But what about a building with sectioned logs in place of bricks?

Now you’ve got the makings for rubbernecking.

Construction crews are about halfway done with work on the exterior of Kalamazoo College’s Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership, covering the one-of-a-kind building’s gently curving outside walls with a random, but intelligently designed, smattering of different sized logs.

The wood is white cedar, and it all comes from Drummond Island, says Av Mulder, masonry foreman for Miller-Davis Co., the main construction firm on the project. Workers on-site receive pre-cut logs from Miller-Davis, then use circular saws to more fully refine the logs for specific placement, forming them in place with a special premixed mortar that sets slowly to minimize cracking.

The end result is a random, up and down orientation of the different sized logs, something Mulder calls "a peak and valley effect." The construction technique has been used on buildings in the Upper Peninsula, Canada, and a few barns scattered around the region. But it’s the first time that an institutional building in the United States has been built with such materials, he says.

Mulder stopped short of estimating how many individual "bricks" might be placed, but did say about 100 cords of wood would be used. Officials from the college’s Office of Communication on Tuesday arranged a tour of the site for local media.

Masons attended a two-day seminar to learn how to use the new kind of "brick," Mulder says. A mason since 1971, he says he has never laid a log before. Crews have to always be thinking about what size log to place next, to keep the placement of the "bricks" fluid looking. Where the pre-fabricated walls bend and curve, masons have to customize the logs even further, making sure their angles correspond to those seen in the walls.

The logs don’t just make for an interesting look, but provide an incredible amount of insulation.

"This isn’t like laying a line down and building a wall," Mulder says. "It’s kind of like working with fieldstone, but you can trim fieldstone. This is all eyeball, always thinking, especially around the windows. It’s like nothing I’ve ever worked on."

He adds with a laugh, "Maybe I’ll have this figured out when we get done."

Work has been hampered by the harsh winter the region has endured, but Mulder thinks the log-laying will be complete in 8-10 weeks. Work on the 10,000-square-foot center, on the corner of Academy and Monroe streets and designed by Chicago-based architectural firm Studio Gang Architects, began in December 2012. It is set to open sometime later this summer.

"It’s an old building design that has been updated for a modern use," says Paul Manstrom, Kalamazoo College vice president for facilities management.

Inside the Gold-targeted LEED certified building, crews cut sections of 2-inch insulation, squeaking them into place on the floor before concrete is poured on Wednesday. The space will be heated with geothermal energy--both in the form of forced air and radiant heat--tapped from a source 400 feet below the center, Manstrom says.

In the coming months, the unique features of the interior will take shape: multi-purpose rooms capable of morphing into different sizes thanks to flexible walls, a community kitchen, and a large hearth, meant to serve as a common area.

"I predict that a lot of people will drive by this building just to look at it," Manstrom says. "It was designed to be unique, just like the Arcus Center that it will be home to."