Juan Miró: What I knew about Formula 1 in
general is what I knew from growing up in
Spain.
It’s probably the most popular sport after
soccer world wide, and so when I heard the
news about Austin having a Formula 1 race
I realized very quickly that was a huge thing
for Austin.
Mark Waggoner: The circuit of the Americas
complex is unique in our experience from the
design standpoint.
Juan Miró: This is a large facility, and
for the owners it was very hard to know exactly
what they could or could not build.
This is the first time there was a race here
in Austin, they don’t know how many suites,
how many seats, how many things that we’re
gonna sell, so how much money that we’re
going to be able to raise to build the facility.
So the grandstand is really more than a building
– it’s a system.
What we developed really is a kit of parts
that you can put together to create a grandstand
that has permanent seats or nonpermanent seats.
It can have bathroooms or not.
The inherent value of the design is that it
has the ability to be broken down in modules.
So when the owners got the first numbers of
what the cost was it was very easy to say
you know you cannot build this monster, let’s
eliminate one module.
So for the next race they can go ahead and
build permanent grandstands there if they
want to.
And it’s everything modulated in a way that
it can be built over time.
The red pipes that define the character of
the tower.
There’s really an attempt to try to capture
the energy of the space where it becomes an
anchor and also the sense of movement of racing
of cars.
Mark Waggoner: The concepts for the tower
were actually quite challenging for us as
structural engineers, which is something we
enjoy in our practice.
We like challenges, we like looking at things
that we don’t have a precedent to go back
to and just do it the same way.
Juan Miró: This project has been a great
opportunity for me to share with students
what many times we are discussing in class,
I teach a design studios, I teach a construction
class.
So it’s a great opportunity for them to
see the action of the construction site and
understand the importance of producing the
right details on documents to make the projects
a reality.
I always tell them if you walk past a construction
site and you don’t look you are not supposed
to be in architecture.
(laughs) if you are not curious enough to
look at the construction site.
Mark Waggoner: We have a very large staff
of engineers who graduated from the program
at UT, and it’s really proud to have the
opportunity to showcase that sort of talent.
The design community in central Texas is very
strong, and we spend a lot of our efforts
sometimes exporting that talent to other places
all around the world.
This was really a great opportunity to take
that talent and really showcase what we can
do right here in Central Texas.
