The final piece of steel was lifted high and placed on the uppermost tip of the building on the University of Oklahoma campus Thursday.

The action signified the approximate halfway point in the renovation and construction of Gould Hall, the architecture building on the South Oval.

"Very few schools these days are able to build a new college," Architecture Dean Charles Graham said. The renovation and construction will provide an excellent new home for the College of Architecture's faculty, staff and students, he said.

Architecture studios, classrooms and offices were moved to the old Hobby Lobby building on Main Street in summer 2008. The College of Architecture will move back into a hardly recognizable Gould Hall in spring or summer 2011, Graham said.

The building will cost about $28 million to $32 million, he said. Bockus Payne and Associates is the architectural firm and Jace Paddleford is the project architect.

When finished in January 2011, Gould Hall will feature state-of-the-art classrooms, studios and student lounges, Graham said.

"We're going to employ furniture systems that no other school in the country will have," he said. "... The main goal of this, or object, is to bring 21st century learning technologies into the classroom."

The new building also will look good, which is a nice change for the college that many said ironically occupied the ugliest building on campus. At least Gould Hall was a regular building, however. Before the college moved to Gould in 1989, it was housed in the Oklahoma Memorial Stadium, said Christina Hoehn, faculty member and point of contact on the construction project for the college.

The college faculty members have been able to have a lot of input into the design of the building, she said.

"Usually we don't get to have that input, but because we're an architecture school, we know how that works, so we were able to get involved," Hoehn said.

The college is made up of several disciplines, including architecture, interior design, landscape architecture, regional and city planning and construction science. In the college's previous homes, the divisions were not able to be housed together in one building. That will change with the renovated Gould Hall, Graham said.

Construction workers, the design team, College of Architecture faculty members and representatives from OU's architectural and engineering services attended a topping off ceremony and lunch Thursday.

"This is a milestone we're celebrating because of all of you," said Kirk Mammen, Flintco project manager.

An evergreen tree, an American flag and a broom were placed on the final steel beam that was placed on the highest point in the building. The tree was a reference to the Nordic practice of conducting a rite to honor the tree after it was cut down for shelter, Mammen said. The flag represented American labor on the project and the broom represented a clean sweep, or no injuries on the job so far, he said.

Julianna Parker Jones 366-3541 jparker@normantranscript.com