CCAC Alpha

California College of the Arts (formerly CCAC) acquired the Greyhound Bus regional repair facility just after the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake. Conversion of a mid-20th century concrete industrial building into a 21st century art school mandated a sophisticated approach to seismic strengthening. We provided straight- forward steel braces that strengthen and define the structure.

The original building was designed to sustain heavy machine shop equipment and storage loads via heavy interior columns and footings. The structural reserve in these elements allowed us to insert simple interior braces without occluding the strip windows on the exterior of the building.  The sections of the steel braces are rotated 90 degrees to fit snugly around the original under-reinforced concrete beams and flanges of the braces were threaded through the concrete floors.