Monthly Archives: September 2020
LLNL Building 805 Renovation
LLNL Building 855 High Explosive Ban Saw
Presidio Culvert
East Palo Alto Youth Arts and Music Center
Confidential Precast Parking Structure
LinkedIn Middlefield Campus
Forell | Elsesser Engineers is providing structural engineering services for this 29-acre Forell | Elsesser Engineers is providing structural engineering services for this 29-acre development which includes three new office buildings and two new parking garages. The new office buildings are six-story structures ranging from 225,000 s.f. to 300,000 s.f. totaling 762,000 s.f. The office towers are ornamented by two ground-level pavilions and a seating structure, of wood and steel construction. Glulam beams with cross-laminated timber (CLT) roof panels are used to create a sail-like canopy that rests atop steel columns.
The steel-framed office structures include a buckling restrained braced frame (BRBF) lateral system. The office towers are supported on deep foundations with pile/pilecap system interconnected with grade beams. F|E is responsible for the full design of the foundation system including the concrete piles. The exterior wall undulates through the buildings resulting in significant cantilevers, ranging up to 15’-0”. All the office buildings will have an extensive roof garden on the third-floor terraces creating a “park-like” setting with trees and walkways.
Customized Solution
- Mass timber was used in the Pavilion and Seating Structure, which will remian architecturally exposed when complete.
- BIM was utilized not only for coordination within the design team, but also as a tool for material quantity takeoff to facilitate overall steel, rebar, and concrete weight takeoff at each major design milestone for cost comparison.
- Finite Element Analysis (FEA) was used for cantilever design and vibration analysis to economize the overall framing design around the perimeter of each floor
- F|E facilitated close coordination between the architect and the BRB manufacturer to provide custom pin connections at the interior BRBFs that remain exposed in finished condition.