Aspen-Pitkin airport improvements blend with the town's historic fabric

New construction at Aspen's airport was designed with the historic and natural aesthetics of the area in mind.

By Chryss Cada

Glitzy Aspen may be all about being seen, but one of the town's biggest buildings was designed to maintain a low profile.

Despite being big enough to house two fire trucks and 15 snowplows, the newly completed Airport Rescue and Fire Fighting and Snow Removal Equipment Facility at the Aspen-Pitkin County Airport literally blends into the background. In fact, a full two-thirds of the 30,000-sq-ft facility is built into the hillside to mitigate the visual impact of the building and meet Pitkin County's planning and zoning requirements.

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Blending In

"We blended a 30,000-sq-ft building into a community that doesn't have that many big buildings, period, said Scott Carey, project manager for Carter-Burgess, the project engineer. "We didn't want some monster metal building sitting in the middle of a field."

Of particular concern was the back side of the building.

"Owl Creek Road is a small back road that connects Aspen and Snowmass," said August Reno of Aspen-based Reno-Smith Architects, the project architect.
"There's a tight curve in the road where drivers would be looking right at the building. Because of the earth berming, people driving on that road don't see an equipment barn; all they see is the natural terrain."

The visible sides of the ARFF/SRE facility were designed to make the structure fit with the community's historic architecture.

"We wanted to break the building up with the use of materials, rather than having a massive metal building," said Reno.

The exterior includes rusted metal siding and stone in neutral colors and a size-masking layout.

Functionality

In addition to looking good, the building was designed to function efficiently.

There are features that are both aesthetic and energy efficient, like the sod roof, Carey said.

In addition to reducing the visual impact of the building, the sod's thermal mass characteristics act as a natural insulator. Other green design features include a wall of windows on the front to allow for extensive daylighting.

"The idea is that the lights won't ever have to be turned on during the day," Carey said. "Even though this is a large building, the daylight will be enough to work by - even in the back corners."

At night, light sources are shielded to minimize light pollution.

The building also has in-floor hydronic heating that heats objects instead of the air. That way all the heated air doesn't rush out every time the large doors are opened for equipment to move in and out, Carey explained.

Also to that end, the building has indoor circulation of vehicles in the equipment bays so that doors to the outside will have to be opened less often.

Outside the building, low-maintenance landscaping includes wildflower and grass mixes and xeriscaping that is watered through available surface water rights. A 24-ft spruce was also planted to blend the new building into its surroundings.

"The new building was long overdue," said Francey Jensson, assistant director of aviation operations for the airport. "Now we can keep all of our equipment inside, which in the past has had to sit outside, exposed to the elements. We had outgrown the old building quite some time ago, and it was in such poor condition it just didn't make sense to repair it."

A $12 million grant from the Federal Aviation Administration funded the bulk of the facility, with the rest coming from matching funds. Jensson stressed that no tax dollars were used to fund the project.

Affordable Housing

In addition to firefighting and snow removal equipment, the new facility contains 6,000 sq ft of administrative space that will house the airport's operations staff. Airport administration had been operating out of the main terminal.

The final tenants of the new building will be residents living in 3,000 sq ft of affordable housing units. "The county requires that any new construction include an affordable-housing element," Carey said. "The units aren't specifically for airport staff, but they will likely be given preference."

Materials used in construction of the building range from wood-frame construction in the administrative areas to steel, reinforced concrete and structural masonry in the equipment bays.

Challenges included utilities that traversed the airport in two different locations, averaging more than a mile extension in each direction, including a major crossing beneath the runway. The most significant change order on the project was the upgrading of the facility to be wired for two cellular sites. Two cupolas were changed from traditional construction materials to fiberglass and nylon construction to allow for installation of antennas inside them.

The construction team included FCI Constructors Inc. and major subcontractors and suppliers LaFarge, Casey Concrete, Western Slope Iron and Earthworks Construction.

The Aspen-Pitkin County Airport is also undergoing major improvements to its lone runway - improvements that will require it to be shut down for two months next spring.

Runway 15/33 will be shut down from April 9 to June 7, 2007 for a major resurfacing.

This type of major rehabilitation is needed every 20 years or so, Carey explained. "A minor rehab only requires milling down a couple of inches and repaving, but we'll go down 8 to 12 in. on this project."

The runway last underwent a major rehabilitation in 1986.

"We're going to do it right now so the runway will last us a good long time," Jensson said.

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