“It has to be temporarily supported until it's completely built, tied to the very top and then the temporary structures are removed. "It's one of those structures where you can't just keep building it and it will self-support,” says Verma. This new building is complicated, with very tight tolerances, adds Ankur Verma, MATT Construction vice president. With the help of a program called LS Dyna, the structure was run through multiple earthquake scenarios to ensure its best behavior in an earthquake, she says. The team designed a steel diagrid structure that is basically a large base frame that will surround the space shuttle, Nulman explains. “So we used a performance-based design, alternate means of compliance to the code and even designed the diagrid that encompasses Endeavour to a higher level of seismic performance than a typical building code-based design,” says Nulman. “When the earthquake event happens, how do we make sure that both the artifact itself is safe and the building doesn't collapse on top of it,” she says. On top of protecting the artifact, designing the building that goes around it was also a challenge, says Amie Nulman, Arup project manager. “Job number one for us was to protect this national treasure,” says Zekioglu. He says the base isolators will allow the earth to move up to 30 in. The shuttle will be attached to the pad with its original launch pad anchor bolts, which are made of inconel steel and were used when Endeavour took off from Kennedy Space Center in the early 1990s and 2000s.Ītila Zekioglu, project director for Arup, says his team worked with ex-Boeing engineers from the space shuttle program, which enabled Arup to “fine tune how much base isolation was needed to make sure that every structural element of Endeavor, including the solid rocket boosters and the external tank, was maintained to be safe under a major earthquake.” Below the pad will be six base isolators to protect the vessel from a seismic event. The shuttle, complete with its original rocket boosters, will sit atop a concrete pad in the middle of the gallery. In the end, the solution was to put it up and then build a temporary building around it to protect it.” “Do you put the shuttle up and build the building around it and risk something falling on it and destroying it, or do you build a building with a hole in it and figure out how to sling the shuttle into the building after it was done. The biggest challenge his team faced was designing a building for a priceless piece of artwork like the shuttle, Hyman explains. “The idea is to make it feel like you are standing out there on the launch pad seeing the shuttle in the dark, ready for takeoff.” Hyman says visitors will enter the shuttle display from the third floor and see the ship completely vertical in the launch position, with the curved-shaped building “essentially evaporating” behind it. The main part of the building will be three stories, with the shuttle gallery rising six stories, topping out at 200 ft to allow for the height of the vertical Endeavour. “The design will give a nod to the shuttle and the technology used to build it,” says Ted Hyman, managing partner with ZGF. Evidence Design is in charge of exhibit design. The project was designed by ZGF Architects, with Arup serving as structural engineer and MATT Construction leading construction.
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