Saiful Bouquet is the structural engineer for Echelon Studios, a new production hub located in the movie studio lots of Hollywood. The urban campus integrates state-of-the-art soundstage production facilities and a working studio lot with digital production and creative office space to meet the evolving demands of content creators across all creative industries.
The vertical movie studio lot is a five-acre complex centered around four 19,000 sq. ft. soundstages and one 15,000 sq. ft. flex stage with an extensive base camp and mill. A 90,000 sq. ft. creative village features two six-story creative office towers flanking the production studios. An elevated campus bridges the office towers with the bungalow village featuring seven executive and creative suites with ample shared and private garden terraces and paseos support a modern work style.
Structural solution for such a complex hybrid project with sound stages sitting on elevated slabs and designed to some of most restrictive loading and vibration criteria required thinking outside the box. The entire development is structurally designed and tied together to work as one structure. The project is in essence a concrete structure with concrete shear walls providing the lateral resistance. The floor system of the offices is designed as flat plate system. The open base camp on the ground floor required use of 65’ long span steel trusses. Steel trusses with steel metal deck were used for the elevated deck that support the bungalow village and the heavily landscaped deck. The bungalow office buildings are designed as timber construction.
The sound stages are constructed with steel trusses spanning 112 feet and share the same lateral system as the towers. The floors of the sound stages had to be designed for the very heaving loading (300~500 psf) and for the strict vibration requirement. Multiple structural options for the sound stage floor were explored including a detailed study to optimize the structural slab system.
Awards
2022 Westside Urban Forum Design Awards | Mixed-Use
