Barbara Hochberg Center for Jewish Student Life, Madison, Wis.
Project of the Year - Worship
As one of the largest and most active Hillel programs in the country, UW Hillel required a worship facility to meet a broad spectrum of needs, from religious to social to educational.
The new Barbara Hochberg Center for Jewish Student Life is the focus of Jewish life on campus, providing a location for Jewish student groups to gather.
Lounges provide space for informal gatherings and a formal dining room enhances the kosher meal plan. Other features include a café, fitness room, library and computer room, and an auditorium. For the first time, this building provides adequate space for all of Hillel’s activities and is also stimulating the creation of many new programs and services.
One of the first challenges the team faced was how to erect a 4-story building on a zero lot line bordered by a hotel and two apartment buildings, with less than 4 ft of space on two sides of the building.
In addition, the owner and design team selected six different materials for the building exterior: cement board panel, tongue and groove Ipe, Jerusalem stone, custom designed curtain wall, hook and strap metal panel and decorative CMU.
Each material required pre-task planning sessions with the project team to work through coordination details.
At the peak of construction, the site hosted three boom lifts, two cranes and two scissor lifts, all working on the exterior finishes simultaneously.
Key Players
Developer/Owner: UW Hillel Foundation, Madison, Wis.; Huffman Facility Development, Madison, Wis.
CM: J. H. Findorff & Sons, Madison, Wis.
Architect: Engberg Anderson, Milwaukee
Civil Engineer: Burse Surveying & Engineering Inc., Madison, Wis.
Structural Engineer: Pierce Engineers Inc., Madison, Wis.
MEP Engineer: Affiliated Engineers, Madison, Wis.
