City of Hope Administration Office Building

The building’s crescent-shaped layout needed an offset shear wall core to optimize floor space on a curved site. This called for a unique structural solution to prevent the building from twisting under seismic loads.

To balance openness with climate control and thermal comfort, the design required an inconspicuous structural system for the west facade’s floating cantilevered walkways, concrete suspended stairs, and aluminum mesh shades.

The client set high sustainability and performance goals for the project from the outset. This demanded solutions to reduce the project’s embodied carbon, due to the building’s extensive use of concrete, much of which was architecturally exposed.

The building lacked a central axis, so complementary shear walls were not feasible. After weeks of analysis, our team fine-tuned shear wall thicknesses and placed an additional shear wall at the building’s opposite end to bring its torsion potential within seismic design limits

Working closely with Gensler, we refined the geometries of the sunshades, stairs, and walkways to produce solutions that matched aesthetics with user experience, like fitting the mesh shading panels on a roof-hung steel structure.

We conducted a whole building life cycle assessment to trace the environmental impact of each building material. By specifying a superior aggregate from British Columbia and maximizing the use of fly ash, we reduced cement usage and embodied carbon to meet the project’s sustainability goals.

The Administration Office Building is now the focal point of the City of Hope campus, and its resilient, environmentally-conscious design sets the standard for future developments under the institution’s 20-year master plan.

Walter P Moore’s design for the sunshades provides enough sun protection to reduce insulation on the western facade while ensuring daylighting and thermal comfort for users in shared spaces.

Our solutions reduced CO2 emissions from concrete mixes by up to 44% and avoided 2.8 million pounds of emissions for the entire project. The building, which is now LEEDv4 Gold certified, also has photovoltaic panels that produce 38% of its energy, highlighting City of Hope’s commitment to sustainable campus design.