We recently finished CDs for the renovation of the Graduate School of Professional Psychology at the University of Denver. The work includes the reconfiguration of several classrooms and offices in the Ammi Hyde Building located at 2460 S. Vine St. The School of Education currently occupies the second floor of the building, and the School of Professional Psychology the first floor and garden level. The School of Education will be moving out of Ammi Hyde and into a different location on campus, and the Graduate School of Professional Psychology will be taking over.
A concern the faculty and staff have is the (non-existent) sound insulation between classrooms, offices and clinic rooms. Being the School of Psychology, they are very concerned with providing sufficient privacy for students as well as patients. We added two large classrooms next to each one of the existing classrooms and provided sound insulation between them by taking the new walls to the underside of the existing floor deck and adding 2’ fiberglass sound batt insulation on each side of the wall above the dropped ceiling. We are also providing this same soundproofing solution between all existing offices and classrooms on all floors. Another area of concern was the several offices & rooms that were previously divided by a wall terminating at the center of an existing window, leaving a gap between the end of the wall and the windowpane. We provided detail to infill this gap with gyp and insulation, and install a false mullion up against the window to match the existing.
The existing building was also lacking adequate lounge space for students and faculty, so we converted several rooms into a large kitchen/vending area. The new space provides personal student lockers, food prep space, and an eating area. We also converted the existing vending area into an ADA compliant restroom and installed a recessed ADA compliant drinking fountain in the main corridor. We specified the Elkay EZH20 Water Cooler which has a faster fill rate than a traditional drinking fountain and is smaller in size than a traditional water cooler. With the unit being in the center core of the building, a traditional drinking fountain would have only been able to provide water at room temperature, since there is quite a distance to the nearest water source.
Although the Elkay EZH20 is a wall-mounted unit, we framed a small alcove for the water cooler to fit into in order to keep the required floor space clearance in the corridor. We made sure to leave room on each side for the side push bar use. The client also chose to include the optional bottle filling station that attaches to the unit, in order to help minimize disposable plastic bottle waste. The unit also has an innovative ticker that counts the number of 12 oz. bottles saved from landfills for refrigerated units.
We are also providing new interior finishes throughout the entire building, and the classrooms will receive new A/V equipment and overhead projectors.
