Museum at Prairiefire

As highlighted on our homepage, this roof presented significant challenges. Initially, the layout provided did not yield flat deck planes in several areas. We refined the layout and incorporated the necessary members to ensure flat deck planes throughout. Our recommendations were well-received and integrated into the design drawings via the RFI process.
 

Further complicating the design was the fact many of the structural members in the roof layout were designed to define the interior ceiling aesthetics rather than to facilitate roof drainage. This necessitated the creation of a secondary roof in certain areas, with additional framing shop-welded atop the primary structural members to achieve the desired drainage slope.
 

Couple this with the intricate system of bent plates essential for adequate deck bearing on every beam in this hip and valley configuration, and one begins to grasp the complexity and challenge inherent in such a structure.