Mall of San Juan
Project Location
San Juan, Puerto Rico
Awards
– 2016 Outstanding Project for New Construction more than $75 Million – SEA – Metropolitan Washington
Project Type
– International
– Retail
Services
– New Construction
A new landmark shopping mall in San Juan, Puerto Rico with a complex steel frame designed for high wind and high seismic requirements.
The Project
The Mall of San Juan is a landmark retail destination consisting of a large upscale indoor shopping mall and three parking structures located in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Straight lines and right angles are hard to find in this sleek building. The form of the mall takes the typical two-story indoor mall and bends it into a meandering curve. The roof is arched over the concourse, with a glass skylight facing north.
The primary mall building is 630,000 square feet and is two stories with a partial basement area. Additionally, a partial third floor restaurant level was included above the main building entry. The garages total over 1,000,000 square feet.
Structural Features
The mall building includes a complex curved raised roof skylight that arches above the flat roof by up to 35 feet. The arch follows the twisting layout of the concourse along the length of the mall building creating three-dimensional curved surfaces. The arch, clad in glass on the north side and metal decking on the south side, is framed with segmental-arched wide flange beams. At the grand court, where the spans exceed 100 feet, built-up steel trusses replace the segmental-arched beams. Architecturally exposed, diagonal steel bracing in the plane of the skylight stiffens the roof diaphragm to resist the hurricane level wind loads.
The Challenges
Two major challenges were posed with the proposed work:
- The complex geometry, with three-dimensional curves, added a level of difficulty to the analysis and dimensional control.
- The location of the mall on a seismically active, hurricane prone Caribbean island.
