Project Data:

Completion Date:     8/20/2025

Square Footage:      459432

Building Use:           Aircraft maintenance hangars

Project Description:

This is an architectural love story; not just about an old building being taken apart and put back together, nor just about two new buildings being added to the family, but also about the history of a place and how a firmly established campus of aircraft hangars at Naval Air Station (NAS) Lemoore with a strong, unchanged aesthetic since the 1960’s can grow to embrace new hangars and missions while honoring the through-line of what has come before.

The operational airfield at NAS Lemoore, located in central California, is visually governed by the overwhelming grid of farmland, the soldier-like row of hangars flanking the main road Reeves Blvd, and the rigidity and repetitiveness of all the hangars' cantilever structural frames. On their own, each individual hangar would be considered unremarkable to most; they are purely function-driven and rather simple, constructed of concrete masonry units and insulated metal wall panels. But considered together they present a strong, united front for the base, emphasizing the bigger picture of their mission to work in tandem to maintain aircraft and support the warfighter. This project submittal presents Hangars 5, 6, and 8, built and renovated within the context of this campus of existing hangars, whose new designs seek to expose and celebrate the soul of NAS Lemoore beneath its most utilitarian architecture.

Spending time walking through the base makes it clear that any new hangars had to play off the original 1960’s hangar design intent of thoughtfully combined massing and patterns, and stay true to the orientation along the taxiways; thus these hangar additions and new constructions are all designed to respect the consistency of form and structure between old and new, while incorporating modern design elements that highlight the high-tech nature and appearance of the F-35.

Hangar 5 was the first to undergo transformation for the F-35C arrival. Its hangar bay was deconstructed and extended with new hangar doors and a seismically-separated structural frame, and two story additions were designed to wrap around its corners. Of great architectural importance was the salvaging and reinstallation of the original Neutra-style Hangar 5 aluminum signage letters onto the new addition as a tribute to the past.

Hangar 6 was designed and constructed in two phases, with the first half intended to visually stand alone until the next half could be mirrored and connect the canopies at the middle. Hangar 8 is constructed in one phase for the moment, as a twin to Hangar 6. The entry canopy designs and the angled front facades of the hangar bays, combined with the perspectives of the structural cantilevers holding up the hangar bays, evoke the form of the F-35, while the massing and window patterns of the first and second floor areas tie into the original design of Hangars 1 through 5, all in an effort to elevate and integrate these new facilities into the historic community of legacy hangars.

Design for Integration, Design for Water , Design for Economy, Design for Well-being, Design for Discovery 

Design for Integration: The heart of this architectural campus project is the consideration of how to design these three new hangars to not just fit with the existing campus of hangars, but also to engage with the new aircraft platform being supported within and to reflect that aesthetically on the exterior. Our goal was to give the pilots and maintainers occupying these hangars a sense of importance and integration within the long story of Naval heritage, while also showing them that they can do their work in a place that inspires them and lifts esprit de corps. By listening to those very same pilots and maintainers from the early design phases onward, we were able to jointly create efficient operational floor plans and at the same time make them feel heard and valued and show them that architecture can give them a voice.

Design for Water: These hangars all incorporate biofiltration areas along the building frontages to capture stormwater runoff and mitigate water quality treatment concerns, while also serving as detention basins for rain overflow events. The landscape design integrates these bioswales with pedestrian entrance sidewalks such that everyone entering the building has to cross over the bioswale and sees the positive impact they have on the environment. Due to the operational constraints of hangars located by an airfield, there is no vegetation allowed that could create foreign object debris for the aircraft; the benefit of this is that there is zero outdoor water use and many opportunities for the landscape architect's creative rockscape designs.

Design for Economy: The design of Hangar 5 incorporated renovation scope, and being able to reuse the bulk of the original building not only helped with minimizing environmental impact ("the best building is the one that's already there") but also gave us the opportunity to salvage the historic original building signage letters and reinstall them on the new addition portion. Being able to honor parts of the old building and continue an aesthetic tradition for the following new Hangars 6 and 8 was a deeply meaningful effort.

Design for Well-being: By their very nature, these hangars are very inward focused to allow for maximum floor plan efficiency of the maintainer-to-aircraft connection; however, our designs incorporated a few special elements that gave the occupants a better experience. Translucent fabric for the vertical lift hangar doors and clerestory translucent panels in the hangar bay allowed for so much more daylighting than the pilots and maintainers were used to in the original hangars, giving them a better mental health connection to the outside and their natural circadian rhythms. Even including elements such as the angled canopies at the main entrances inspired by the wings of the F-35 helps to emotionally connect them to the aircraft as the enter the building for their day's work.

Design for Discovery: Having the chance to design three different hangars on the same campus over time has given us the best insights from one building to the next, making each successive one a little better than the last. While the basic functions of the hangars are pretty clear, being able to stay involved on each from charrette to ribbon cutting let us talk to the occupants more and see what was working or not before designing the next hangar. For example, seeing that the maintainers are usually walking between the shops and the hangar bay with lots of tools or carts full of parts, we incorporated door handles with push-pull paddle handles for better ease of use; also observing what materials handled the heavy duty wear and tear better than others led to specifying different materials for the next hangar that required much less maintenance or replacement over time. Finally, designing their first floor main gathering area for maintenance staff daily briefings at the center of each squadron's space across from the main entry door was our way of honoring the building's purpose and encouraging the pilots and maintainers to focus on teamwork behavior.

Completion Date:     8/20/2025

Square Footage:      459432

Building Use:           Aircraft maintenance hangars

Location:                 Naval Air Station Lemoore, California