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In 2002, Oregon State University’s Education Hall was slated for demolition. The building had suffered a fire and a series of poor renovations in its 100 years, and its fate was seemingly sealed.

That same year, Sam Stern became dean of the OSU College of Education, which was headquartered in Education Hall. Stern said the building had not aged well and had been maintained in such patchwork fashion that passing children said it looked 鈥渓ike a prison.鈥� Then an effort was launched to save it.

鈥淎t the 100-year anniversary, we rededicated ourselves to that building,鈥� Stern said.

The $17 million renovation of Education Hall presented an interesting challenge, said Troy Ainsworth, Fletcher Farr Ayotte principal in charge of the project.

鈥淲hen our structural engineer looked at (Education Hall), they concluded it was really like a house of cards. Nothing was really substantively attached to anything else,鈥� Ainsworth said. 鈥淚t was amazing to people that people had worked and taught and learned in this building for so long in that condition.鈥�

After a fire in the 1920s, the building’s wooden structure was replaced with concrete, except for the roof, which kept its wooden frame. That upgrade and others left the building with load-bearing walls modified sketchily and a sandstone exterior that absorbed water.

鈥淭hings were not particularly well attached to each other,鈥� Ainsworth said. 鈥淕enerations of construction (workers) each did their own thing.鈥�

More issues arose as work began on a seismic upgrade. The project team planned to line the building’s basalt stone base with an 8-inch-thick concrete block wall on the inside. Preliminary coring tests determined that the basalt was about 4 inches thick, but the team soon discovered that the basalt ranged from 4 inches in some places to 2 feet in others.

鈥淲e had to come up with a new system to keep all that stone in place and to create a new seismic wall behind it,鈥� said Shawn Homberg, Fletcher Farr Ayotte project manager.

The building ended up with a seismic frame of shotcrete 鈥� concrete or mortar sprayed through a hose.

鈥淲hen you’re renovating a historic building, nothing is plumb (and) nothing is square,鈥� said Rene Gonzalez, Fortis Construction project executive. 鈥淵ou have to be prepared to provide creative solutions.鈥�

The finished product will be 鈥渁 new, 50-year building,鈥� Gonzalez said. The construction team deconstructed the sandstone exterior and stripped the building down to its basalt base and concrete frame. The updated Education Hall will have insulation and insulated windows, as well as a lighter, more seismically stable limestone exterior.

鈥淲hen we first came to this project, the building was gray stone, wrapped in chain-link fence, with greenish-gray asphalt shingles. In our research we found an original photo of a white stone building with an orange-red roof: we thought that building looked a lot more fun,鈥� Ainsworth said. 鈥淧art of our work has been restoring its historic integrity.鈥�

鈥淚t will look very much like the original,鈥� Stern said.

But officials looked to the future to remodel Education Hall’s interior.

鈥淭he old interior was awful. It was dark and, after a series of bad remodels, had blind hallways and nooks and crannies,鈥� Stern said.

OSU was unsure whether it would be able to afford interior renovations, and Fortis began with only a seismic retrofit. Fletcher Farr Ayotte’s design was adaptable, so that construction crews could perform seismic work while leaving the interior space flexible for possible future upgrades.

But after Greenbrier CEO William Furman presented a $2 million gift in April, the interior renovation became feasible, Stern said.

The four-story, 40,000-square-foot building will continue to house the offices of OSU’s College of Education. Some classroom spaces will be able to accommodate as many as 100 students. A new atrium will extend through all four floors and provide daylight and shared community space.