The Continental Engineering Corporation’s company image and culture are reflected through its headquarters building design, crafted with sophisticated attention to detail by using the most basic building materials, namely concrete, steel and glass.
The building is composed of a transparent glass box, eight reinforced concrete columns, exposed steel bracings at its four corners and a service core in the rear. The exoskeleton element strongly expresses the dynamics of the building structure: the mega-columns and floor trusses support the gravity loadings, and the exterior bracings resolve the lateral system for seismic loading.
The technical challenges for design and construction of the exposed structural system, long span steel members and pour-in-place architectural concrete were not only overcome collaboratively by the client, contractor and the design team, but also done so with elegance and grace.
