With all the new perks from Architecture Hall's $25 million renovation, it's easy to overlook that the major goal was to keep the building standing.

An eight-inch concrete barrier was added to the inside of the building to keep its many bricks from collapsing on students during an earthquake, said the building's project manager Mark Sweeters.

"We built a new concrete building on the inside of it," he explained.

To highlight the 100-year-old building's interior, new architecture studios, $600,000 in new furniture and a spacious cafe greeted students and faculty with the building's re-opening on Aug. 1, 2007.

The most functional change is upstairs, where the new studios flow together with exposed concrete and high skylights.

Architecture graduate student Aron Johnson said the new studios are nice, but they're a little cold because students haven't had a chance to take them over.

Before the rooms were remodeled, students had written things on the wall, he said.

"The studios were run down, but there was something about them that made them personal," he said.

The re-design brought back the Design Coffee, an independent coffee shop on campus that serves mostly organic foods.

At the top of two staircases, the new café has an open seating area, with new furnishings, straight lines, earth tones and lots of glass. It's a great place to study or meet a friend for coffee.

It's also central to the building's upper level, as people have to walk through the high-ceilinged café to get to the second floor studios.

The first floor is dedicated mostly to the Department of Construction Management. Some changes made on this floor include three classrooms replaced by two larger ones, which are wider in the front with a shorter depth.

The professors prefer being closer to their students and having a wider working space for the projectors and white boards, said John Schaufelberger, chair of the department.

Schaufelberger also said the building's auditorium was remodeled and retrofitted with light control, dual projectors and window coverings.

"It accommodates their need for teaching," he said about the younger teaching staff.

The first floor also features offices for about 10 people. Although the offices are a little smaller than University standard, the department was able to request better furniture to maximize the space they had.

The individual staff members got to choose their own furniture, Schaufelberger said.

"In our department, all of the faculty and staff are pleased to be more central to campus," Schaufelberger said.

During the renovation, Condon Hall (which was emptied out when the new law school was finished) was used as a temporary home for the building.

"The convenience of having the new law building built was it gave use what we call surge space," said Norm Arkans, UW's executive director of media relations and communications. "Rather than assigning permanent tenants to it, they decided to use it as a place they could move [the people in] buildings while they were being renovated."

Many of the older buildings on campus are at the end of their usable life cycle.

Despite the difficult and unpredictable nature of restoration, it's actually cheaper to renovate the buildings than to rebuild them, Sweeters said.

Tearing down a building requires heavy dumpster fees and demolition costs, not to mention that brick exteriors are expensive to build.

"To replace that kind of thing is phenomenally expensive," Sweeters said.

And even if a concrete building was erected in its place, it wouldn't have been cheaper, Sweeters explained.

The project was completed about $1 million under budget, which is pretty good, as renovating old buildings can be unpredictable. The extra money will be used for landscaping, which was originally cut from the budget, Sweeter said.

Architecture Hall was originally built in 1909, during the Alaska Yukon Pacific Exposition, which is a type of world fair. The same event laid down what is now called the Rainier Vista, which is why from Red Square on a clear day students can see Mt. Rainier floating above Drumheller Fountain.

It had a minor remodel in about 1988, where an elevator was added, as well as some aesthetics, but nothing too structural.

Architecture Hall is a part of the "Restore the Core" project on campus. The first was Mary Gates Hall, which originally was used for physics, and the second was Johnson. The next on the list is Savery Hall, which began its renovation this fall.

Most of the funding for these projects has come from state grants.

Arkans said: "For a campus that is old, ... going in systematically and going into these beautiful building and modernizing them ... is a great way to use the campus space."

[Reach reporter Celeste Flint at features@thedaily.washington.edu.]