Students and faculty of La Habra High School are waiting in the wings for their new performing arts facility to be completed, with a scheduled completion date in mid-2019. Currently students are traveling over 20 miles to showcase their performances. Not ideal, as you can imagine. Ruhnau Clarke Architects are designing the campus and leading the project.

“The new performing arts building and complex will complement the robust visual and performing arts program at LHHS and serve as a crown jewel not only for the students, but also for the parents and community.”
Joe Calderon, Project Architect, Ruhnau Clarke Architects

User Needs Come First

Ruhnau Clarke Architect’s design includes a promenade that links existing buildings to the new facility, making it user-friendly for people to easily access the arts complex. The theatre holds up to 620 audience members along with a scene shop, costume storage, dressing rooms, concession stand and ticket booth. The Performing Arts Center (PAC) has highly technical requirements to accommodate full stage rigging and for the auxiliary classrooms specific to teaching the arts.

The Structural Story

This was KNA’s first use of Buckling-Restrained Braced Frames (BRBFs). Steel fabricators who specialize in this type of product provide engineering to the structural engineer and then construct the braces. CoreBrace, a company that specializes in BRBFs, worked with KNA during the design phase. Every brace is designed individually to meet the needs of the project.

Structural Systems

Metal decking, steel beams and columns with buckling-restrained braced frames (BRBFs) as the seismic load-resisting system.
Foundations are concrete-grade beams and continuous footings.

Buckling-Restrained Brace Frames Are Unique Alternative

“Buckling-restrained braces offer a cost-effective alternative to conventional braced frames while surpassing their energy dissipation capacity,” said Jason Smith, KNA’s Project Manager. Conventional steel bracing elements show asymmetrical behavior under cyclic loading with high ductility in tension due to the ductile yielding material characteristics and buckling under compression. By removing the buckling phenomenon, BRBFs offer balanced, extremely ductile and dissipative cyclic behavior.

Project Details

Owner: Fullerton Joint Union High School District
Architect: Ruhnau Clarke Architects
Project Manager: Alvin Flores, Associate Principal
KNA Project Manager: Jason Smith
Project Size: 25,000 sq ft
Project Cost: $27M

To learn how KNA Structural Engineers can put their experience to work for you, please contact us.

Watch the construction progress

See more completed K-12 projects by KNA

Images courtesy of Ruhnau Clarke Architects.