KCL Engineering World Headquarters

Studio MELEE

Recognitions: Spring 2020 Iowa Architect

Project Description

When acquired, the property contained a well-maintained but non-descript brick and block building housing a long-tenured neighborhood furniture store. Through the process of removing multiple years of interior finish, the building’s rich history was uncovered. Originally dating back to 1918, it had been constructed to serve as a neighborhood auto dealer and repair shop. After multiple additions and modifications throughout the 1950’s and 1960’s, the buildings automotive use was fully converted to retail and storage by the late 1970s. With the goal of creating an open, flexible and creative workspace for a growing team of Mechanical and Electrical Engineers, all the non-essential walls, ceiling and applied finishes were removed, leaving a 10,000sf volume subdivided only by two load-bearing masonry walls. Each area revealed a slightly unique historic aesthetic. The light-filled south half was defined primarily by barrel-vaulted trusses and featured rich black and red terrazzo floors. The northwest quadrant, likely built in the 1950’s, featured an arched steel-truss barrel vaulted roof. The northeast quadrant, which was likely filled-in at a later date, featured a steel-framed flat roof and large overhead door. A series of delicate interventions were derived to contain various programmatic elements including conference and meeting rooms, copy, break and restrooms. The interventions were fully prefabricated including the post-and beam structures, wall panels and glass doors and were delivered and assembled in a matter of days. Having done much of their engineering work in Hawaii, the profile of the beams and hand-assembled plywood crib ceilings where designed to give a midwestern nod to the Islands after which each room is named. The state-of-the-art building was equipped with new energy efficient systems. Considering the nature of the firm’s business, the systems were left entirely exposed. All these systems required careful coordination with various trades, and integration with the prefabricated components.