Beauty or Utility? Why Not Both?

Sometimes you buy a tool and find out it can do two or three useful things, when what you really wanted was just the one.

That’s what happened when architect Saul Suarez chose a skin of corrugated metal panels to cover the 52,000-sq-ft Port Pavilion on Broadway Pier in San Diego, the winner of a 2012 Metal Architecture Design Award. The building—a cruise ship terminal—was completed in December 2010, providing a long-awaited replacement for the series of tents that once greeted passengers entering or leaving America’s Finest City. 

The building’s skin is painted with two hues of PPG’s Duranar VARI-Cool paint—Jamaican Reef and Polar Flare. As viewers and the sun move around the building, the variations of those colors change to the eye, mimicking the effect of the sun’s rays on the surface of the adjacent ocean water. 

The building’s chameleon-like paint scheme and sawtooth profile present a striking image that the city is glad to have greeting visitors to the pier. 

“We are extremely proud of having the landmark building along our waterfront,” said Tanya Castaneda, Port of San Diego public information officer. “The building is now an eye-catching signature statement for motorists and pedestrians.” 

Making that happen was not exactly easy for Suarez and his team.

For one thing, the pier was almost 100 years old, an Army Corps of Engineers relic that had been updated twice but remained too rigid to meet modern seismic shock standards. So Bermello Ajamil & Partners, where Suarez is a partner and project manager, hired a team that underpinned the pier’s pilings with a plate designed to absorb the lateral shock movements caused by earthquakes.

Second, that retrofitting work on the pier ate into the strict budget—just shy of $20 million—that the Port of San Diego had allotted for the project. That meant that Suarez had to find a material that was aesthetically, practically, and fiscally pleasing. In other words, it had to be attractive, lightweight, durable, and affordable. All that on a foundation that can only bear so much.

“We could not create a structure that could not be supported by that pier,” Suarez said. “The constraints that we had to begin with were structural in nature, because we had to make the building as light as possible. And because we also were dealing with seismic issues, we could not use materials that were too rigid.” The corrugated metal, accented by smooth metal wall panels and metal roof panels manufactured by The Morin Corp., gave the building a skin that was light, flexible, quickly fabricated, and easy to maintain. The corrugated panels—probably the most visible of the building’s outer elements—also gave the walls an aesthetic kick. 

“What we also liked was the fact that it was just a flat wall, which was going to be boring,” Suarez says. “If we didn’t do enough fenestrations to the skin of the building, it was going to be very, very blah, and that’s part of the reason we selected that paint on the metal. As you move around the building or the sun changes, there are all kinds of things happening on the skin of the wall of that building.” 

With the two-story building welcoming people to Broadway Pier, what was an eyesore now makes for an attractive statement that is expected to receive LEED Silver Certification from the U.S. Green Building Council.

“We were extremely happy,” Suarez said. “We had some really drastic conditions. At different times, we talked about different materials. With all of the components we needed to abide by, it made it an easy decision that metal was going to be the best solution.” 

SIZE
52,000 sq ft

DATE OF COMPLETION
December 18, 2010 

DESIGN ARCHITECT
Bermello Ajamil & Partners, Inc.

COATINGS MANUFACTURER
PPG Industries, Inc.

METAL ROOF PANEL

The Morin Corp., A Kingspan Group MANUFACTURER Company

METAL INSTALLER
Challenger Sheet Metal

GENERAL CONTRACTOR
Jaynes Corp.

OWNER
San Diego Unified Port District

PROJECT COST
$19.7 million