USC Again Turns to Hope’s® Marshall School of Business Fertitta Hall

When the design team for a new business school building at the University of Southern California was deciding on what type of windows and doors to install, they took a tour of USC School of Cinematic Arts campus.

Completed in 2014, the Cinematic Arts School is a four-acre complex of six buildings that features about 200 Hope’s Jamestown175™ Series solid hot-rolled steel windows.

The tour proved pivotal, convincing the design team to abandon its brief flirtation with aluminum and instead choose Hope’s steel windows.

As a result, Hope’s hot-rolled solid steel windows and doors were installed in the new Jill and Frank Fertitta Hall, the undergraduate facility of the USC Marshall School of Business.

The five-story, 104,000 square foot building features Hope’s Jamestown175™ Series fixed and casement windows and Hope’s 5000 SeriesTM swing doors and offset pivot doors with transoms and sidelights.

The Fertitta Hall project required a large amount of custom shaping for Gothic architectural style arched windows. Eight of the fixed windows spanned 6’ wide by 40’ tall sweeping into an artful pointed apex.

True divided lite muntins were specially engineered and manufactured to meet structural requirements for the complex intersecting arches at such a grand scale. Hope’s fully welded construction unites the framing and muntins to become one seamless piece of steel.

Hope’s solid hot-rolled steel can sustain the load requirements of such large windows and achieve the exact aesthetics desired. In comparison, aluminum would have been bulky, made of more parts, mechanically held together and have visible seams, greatly changing the aesthetics.

“The Hope’s windows fit best with the Collegiate Gothic style that USC now wants for its campus,” says Alex Maffei of Hathaway Dinwiddie Construction Company of Los Angeles.

Hope’s windows and doors help architects achieve even the most technically challenging design visions with unlimited shapes and sizes. Hope’s advanced coating process ensures that all Hope’s steel windows and doors last longer than any other available, even under the most extreme environmental conditions.

“Everyone is quite impressed with the quality of craftsmanship Hope’s achieved for the unique and demanding requirements of this project,” Maffei says.

Designed to achieve LEED Gold certification, Fertitta Hall features 21 classrooms, two lecture halls, 50 breakout rooms, an outdoor courtyard, and advanced technology. The building is located at Figueroa Street and Exposition Drive, close to the main entrance of USC.

The architectural firm, AC Martin, Los Angeles, says, “The design of Fertitta Hall reinforces the mission of USC of educating, recruiting and retaining the best and the brightest entrepreneurs and business leaders.”

The new hall is named after philanthropists Jill and Frank Fertitta. Frank is a USC Marshall School alumnus and is the chairman and CEO of Fertitta Entertainment and Station Casinos, both based in Nevada.

Hope’s Windows, Inc. is the nation’s leading and most experienced manufacturer of custom designed, solid hot rolled steel and solid bronze window and door systems, specializing in historic preservation, cultural, institutional, commercial and luxury residential applications. In addition to USC, Hope’s windows and doors can be found on numerous prestigious campuses across the United States.