Dugmore Hall

The team strived to enhance the student experience on Central Washington University’s campus while responding to continual student population growth by developing the new 102,500 SF housing and 6,000 SF dining facilitiies at the northern edge of campus.

The project includes 120-double residential units with bathrooms, 126-double residential units without bathrooms, nine RA residential units, four single residential units and one faculty apartment.

The Northside Commons utilized a pre-engineered building system to expedite schedule and manage costs. The system was ideal to create a simple structure with large open spans to allow for flexibility over time for the convenience store, hot food service, and open seating.

CRAFTING A TIMELY STRATEGIC PROCESS
Working within this very truncated timeline, the selected Design-Build (DB) team was set to initiate a design process in January of 2018 and deliver a completed facility in the summer of 2019—a rapid 18 months from start to finish.

Upon kicking off the project, to meet this aggressive schedule, the Lydig + Mahlum DB team crafted a highly structured, workshop-based process that focused on timely decision making. An initial 8-week predesign phase focused on major decisions around program, major systems selection, budget development, and a phased permitting plan that ultimately ensured successful project delivery.

Critical to speed of delivery was understanding which decisions could be made by project leaders and which needed to be elevated to campus leadership. This allowed the team to schedule well in advance (for example) an exterior materials workshop so that CWU President Gaudino could attend in person, finalize decisions, and enable design to proceed seamlessly.