Sarah Alfaro and Chase Pitner love talking about their signature projects for the venerable architectural firm HNTB, especially the practice locker room for Louisiana State University’s Tigers football team. And for good reason: It sets a very high bar in design, functionality, and durability, and is considered one of the very top facilities in college football. 

“Our goal for this project was to create a transformative space, based on rest, refuel and recovery, because these players are going to be in there for several hours a day,” said Alfaro, HNTB’s senior interior designer. 

“These players are in there before and after practice, and between classes. Some practice facilities have rooms full of bunkbeds, but LSU’s vision was to create a first-class experience for their players — as in, the first-class cabin of international airliners, with all the comfort and functionality of those lay-flat seats and creative use of storage. This is a space for maintaining the equipment and maintaining the athletes.”

Notable design elements include: 

• XXXL seating that folds flat.
• Abuse-proof helmet storage.
• Negative air-pressure storage  compartments to dry and minimize smells from gear. 
• Easy-to-clean and durable surfaces that still offer the warm visuals and textures of wood.
• All the modern amenities and comfort of first-class airline cabins.

“It needed to be convenient, it needed to be comfortable, and it needed to be durable as well as hygienic to accommodate the focus on the recovery of the players,” said Pitner. “If we didn’t hit those four goals, the project wouldn’t be successful. 

“Our fabrication partner for this project was OFS Brands. Their willingness to prototype and to develop the design idea together, in terms of how the details come together, and how the mechanical, the electrical is all integrated within their system, made it not only a unique experience, but a unique outcome.”

OFS Brands is known for building innovative office, healthcare, education and hospitality furniture, with a reputation for their sophisticated approach to improving the functionality of commercial spaces while also elevating the design impact of their projects. The lead for this story came from Cory Menke, OFS’s chief Operations manager, in a conversation about the company’s ability to diversify by applying the flexibility it has developed over the years of winning and executing high-profile projects. 

OFS: No fear of big challenges
“One of the pillars of OFS is our willingness to produce custom products and modify standards,” said Menke. “In doing so we’ve set up our facilities to be ready for whatever’s coming down the road, whether it’s a week, a month, or a year. There have definitely been some pretty significant challenges! It’s amazing what designers and clients come up with when they’re trying to put their personal touch on any given project. We love those kinds of challenges.”

The locker room is really a centerpiece for LSU’s recruiting. “They wanted it to be stunning,” said Menke. “There was a little bit of shock when we saw the first renderings, but after sitting down with HNTB and LSU and digesting what they were after, we felt pretty comfortable in our ability to execute.”

The LSU locker room has led to similar projects with other teams and universities. 

“Clients like this just really want to put their signature on their projects, from the overall uniqueness of the design, down to the smallest functional details,” Menke said. “Being willing to take on those complexities and executing at a high level has become a differentiator for us, in this niche, especially.”

Engineering solutions
Menke said David Lubbehusen, OFS’s director of engineering, expertly guided the project to fruition. 

“His ability to translate what the client was after and help define their goals was key,” Menke said. “He’s been with OFS for 40 years, and his experience and engineering expertise was absolutely essential to the success of this project — interpreting the design, helping find the materials we needed to execute the design, and understanding how our machines were going to react to use those materials.” 

Beyond just custom, there wasn’t very much of this project that was “off the shelf.” 

“I love talking about it,” Lubbehusen said, “because it really showcases not only our deep resources and capabilities, but our willingness to take on a project this ambitious. This was really a career high for many of us who’ve been here for a long, long time.”

“Emmett proof”
The whole thing started, Lubbehusen recalled, when the equipment manager and the head of architecture for LSU traveled with the team, inspiring the idea of bringing the sophistication, comfort and functionality of first-class airline seating to the locker room, creating a space where players could recover, assemble, and strategize in comfort.

“We started with a design charrette, making sketches and then plywood models,” he said. This hands-on phase included unusual but effective size assessments. “We even used a large gentleman from the custodial staff to help us scale things appropriately.”
The development process was intense, characterized by trial and error and a relentless focus on durability. 

“We coined the term ‘Emmett-proof,’ after one of the LSU athletics staff [no longer with the program], who would rigorously test the durability of our mock-ups by kicking and slamming components,” said Lubbehusen. “This helped us immensely in selecting materials like solid surfacing and 3DL (3D laminate) that could withstand the harsh environment of a sports locker room.”

The project’s secrecy was paramount, with everything from the mobile metal wall constructions to the custom-designed cushions needing to be kept under wraps until the grand reveal. 

“We had to make sure everything was perfect, down to the custom LSU purple on the cushions and the high-pressure laminate on the overheads,” said Lubbehusen.

As the project neared completion, the team faced the challenge of maintaining the integrity of their designs while ensuring that every element was durable and functional. 

“We failed a number of times, which was crucial,” said Lubbehusen. “It allowed us to refine our processes and ensure that everything we built could be easily maintained and replaced if necessary.”

“The original sketches from Chase at HNTB are still hanging here in my office,” he said. “The final project landed insanely close to the original vision.”

Careful material choices
Lubbehusen said OFS had to do some tweaking to the original design for the airline-style overhead helmet storage, because of the way the seating is laid out: the rows of lay-flat style first-class-cabin seats are set at an angle, making overhead access tricky. 

“The lockers are in a zigzag orientation to allow for as much floor space as possible when the seating is extended out into the walkway,” he explained. “Behind each locker is a low air-volume draw ventilation system, to dry equipment and keep odors out of the room.”

OFS recommended solid surface interiors for the overheads, to handle many years of abuse. An overhead LED accent light adds a showcase element to the helmet cubbies. 

The equipment storage ventilation raceways are built from thermally fused laminate (TFL), with some added campers and couplers. Using TFL in this way helped keep costs low and took advantage of OFS’s expertise fabricating with the material. 

The lay-flat seating benefitted from OFS’s expertise in building overnight accommodations for its Carolina healthcare furniture brand, using a slide mechanism that can handle heavy players that will sit, sleep and maybe even stand on them. There’s a slide-out equipment drawer below, also connected to the air-draw system. 

The seat design’s armrest cavity area includes integrated lighting, USB charging ports, a standard electrical outlet, drink holders and gooseneck iPad arms. The cavity interior is laminated with a woodgrain 3DL from Omnova (now Surteco). Solid surface was used for the vertical panels on the dividers between the seats. The tops of the dividers are the same woodgrain 3DL, which Lubbehusen said was chosen to bring that extra element of luxury to the project.

“Our goal was to deliver the level of durability and design the client expected, using materials and techniques that we were familiar with,” said Lubbehusen. “We knew we had to choose our materials carefully because we wanted to be able to stand behind the project.” 

OFS’s material know-how was appreciated by the design team. “Being able to utilize those materials and really dive in with OFS on their expertise on the materiality of aspects was really an awesome experience,” said Alfaro. “Their excitement and engineering mindset was extremely beneficial in bringing the project to life.”

Warmth of wood but tough
“When we were looking for something durable that would give us the ‘pop’ of the warmth of wood, OFS suggested 3DL,” said Alfaro. “This was educational for me. I liked how 3DL components can look like they’re carved from a solid piece of wood, how it’s formed, and how great it is for making custom parts, but we needed to make sure it met the Emmett test — that it was going to be durable enough for the abuse, and the cleaning required.” 

OFS has extensive experience in fabricating 3DL components, and was able to show Alfaro and Pitner that the material is indeed tough enough for a college football locker room. 

“Understanding the capabilities of the material is just the beginning,” said Alfaro. “When I think about using curved shapes, I’m not limited to carving something out of a solid block of material. It’s a different way of thinking about how to solve challenges.”

Career-defining project
Today, the LSU Tigers’ practice locker room stands as a pinnacle of design and durability, a project that, according to Lubbehusen, “exceeded expectations and continues to serve the team well.” The success of the project has forged lasting relationships and a sense of accomplishment among everyone involved.

“This whole project literally started with Sarah and I sharing a couple of sketches on napkins,” says Pitner. “When we shared the concept with LSU there was a long pause, but that quickly became excitement, and the ideas on how to make it a reality started to flow from all sides.”

It all came together. “The stars were definitely aligned,” said Alfaro. “You know, it wasn’t just a job for anybody that was involved. It was a passion project. And when we got to see the opening and see players in this space, and hear how it’s performing the way we designed it to…I’d say this is the highlight of my career so far — the concept, the creativity, the collaboration, and of course being able to see the finished project when it was unveiled.” 

3DL use in commercial projects: applied design
Three dimensional laminates, aka 3DL, thermofoils, or rigid thermofoils (RTF), or sometimes just “vinyls,” have been a reliable go-to for commercial furniture and interiors for decades. Unfortunately they remain poorly understood, and therefore underutilized, in projects where they can do the most good. 

They’re unusual in that they can laminate five of six sides of a carved panel in a single pressing operation, effectively sealing the substrate – usually MDF with a TFL backer. Because of their flexibility, designers can specify unusual shapes, soft edges, carved details on the panel faces (spill channels on a hospital bedside table), and even interior cutouts (the little cubby where your doctor or dentist accesses rubber gloves, or trash receptacle chutes on countertops). 

“We refer to this as ‘applied design,’ because 3DL frees designers up to create different, unconventional shapes and contoured edges, things that standard laminates and edge treatments are not able to do,” said Dustin Smith, Surteco’s VP of Strategy and Innovation. 

“This design flexibility addresses safety and cleanability challenges in any high-use environment where sharp edges are unsafe, like senior living and education, where you want to protect the substrate from moisture, fluids and frequent cleaning like healthcare, and in retail, where designers want high-impact or branded designs. 

Smith said OFS has been working with 3DL for years, using it in its healthcare and office furniture designs. “Matches to HPL and TFL are readily available for value-engineered projects, and newer recycled 3DLs made from recycled PET are now available for designers looking for more sustainable options,” said Smith.

Several certified Continuing Education Unit (CEU) programs for manufacturers, architects and interior designers are available. Contact Material Intelligence ([email protected]) for more information.