Saiful Bouquet is providing structural engineering services for the University of San Diego’s new, three-story, 70,000 sf STEM facility, made possible by a gift from Darlene Marcos Shiley. The building is strategically designed to physically link the Shiley-Marcos School of Engineering and the College of Arts and Sciences, fostering interdisciplinary collaboration. This facility will house specialized spaces for cutting-edge fields, including labs for biomedical engineering, robotics, and neuroscience, along with maker spaces and an accessible rooftop ecology zone.
The new facility’s structural system is designed predominantly in reinforced concrete slab-column-wall system. A central architectural feature is an atrium topped by a butterfly roof consisting of Glulam timber framing that allows natural light to penetrate through high clerestory windows, introducing visual warmth and distinction to the concrete structure below.
The building’s gravity system consists of two-way reinforced concrete flat plate slab that spans 33 feet along the outer bay, supported by reinforced concrete columns. To manage the vibration demands of sensitive equipment, the slab thickness is increased in localized areas.The lateral load resisting system utilizes Special Reinforced Concrete Shear Walls. These shear walls are strategically positioned adjacent to stairwells and corridors to minimize interference with the building’s functional layout and open floor plans.The foundation system consists of conventional shallow footings at columns, and combined footings at shear walls and nearby columns.
