My overall strategy for my building’s structural system primarily reflected:
- Material selection appropriate for my project climate (heavy rainfall during summer months and high levels of humidity throughout year).
- Desire to maintain open atrium in center portion of building.
- Desire to maintain open duct for elevator and stair case areas.
- Desire to account for sloped portion of roof for aesthetic value and to maximize solar PV generation.
Given the regional climate, I decided that wood was not an appropriate material and instead opted for steel columns and beams. For my beam systems I selected K-Series Bar Joist-Rod Web 16K2 given the lightweight nature of these elements.
My “baseline” distance between structural columns was a approximately 25 feet, which I felt struck an appropriate balance between span length and maintaining a degree of open space within the building interior.
I then deviated from this baseline span distance to better account for my building’s design elements. To account for the open air atrium, for example, I needed to adjust certain framing elements. This resulted in beams with spans as short as ~9ft and as long as ~31ft.
I similarly needed to adjust the placement of structural columns adjacent to the stair/elevator shaft.
Arguably the most challenging aspect of my structural framing resulted from my building’s (partially) sloped roof. To account for this section, I create structural columns with variable lengths of increasing size. I then connected the columns with sloped beams and then created a new work plane to enable the placement of sloped beam systems.
Ultimately I aimed to site my framing elements largely toward my building edges and around the edges of my atrium and elevator/stair shaft. This helps to ensure that the building’s corridors and rooms themselves to remain relatively open and clear.