Saiful Bouquet is the Structural Engineer for the new 135,000 sf, 3-story Robert Day Sciences Center at Claremont McKenna College designed by Bjarke Ingels Group – BIG. The building will be home to the College’s next-generation Kravis Department of Integrated Sciences providing a multi-disciplinary, computational approach to advance gene, brain, and climate knowledge. It will also feature a lecture, interactive learning spaces, and new state-of-the-art teaching labs.
The unique building structure consists of stacked pairs of rectangular blocks, each pair rotated 45-degrees from the floor below. The continued rotation of each floor creates a central atrium space at the building interior with a skylight above. A series of steel trusses running along the exterior length of each block forms the main gravity loading carrying system for the building.
The concrete-filled floors over metal decks supported by steel beams are designed for the restrictive vibration criterion needed for the research labs. Seismic resistance is provided by concrete core walls placed at the zones that allow for vertical continuity. The Foundation system consists of conventional spread footings and localized mats at core wall locations.
The project is expected to be completed in 2024.
