Construction Update: Lucas Museum of Narrative Art (Copy)

Sep 10

North and west facades from Vermont Avenue.

Construction has wrapped up at MAD Architects’ second US project, the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art at Exposition Park in South Los Angeles. The 300,000 square-foot non-profit museum will officially open to the public on September 22nd and feature collection galleries, exhibition spaces, two 299-seat theaters, digital classrooms and a free public research library for educators, scholars and students.

The museum’s facade consists of 1,270 curved fiber-reinforced polymer (FRP) panels, each unique in shape. These lightweight panels were able to accommodate the building’s organic form while not adding too much additional weight to the steel structure underneath. Glass fiber reinforced concrete (GFRC) is employed along the base of the building. At the center of the building, a public plaza is created by arched steel members spanning 185 feet, with an oculus at the center. All of the structure rests on 281 seismic base isolators that will allow the building to move as much as 42 inches in the event of an earthquake. The Cobiax system of hollow plastic voids was used in approximately 75,000 square feet of covered area to achieve a dead load reduction of 851 cubic yards of concrete (approximately 1,723 tons). Beneath the museum site, there are 714 geothermal wells, each about 365 feet deep, that works to cool the building.