Ramada Canopy for New U.S. Consulate Nogales

The Project

The canopy for the New Office Building (NOB) of the U.S. Consulate in Nogales, Mexico consists of tapered structural steel plate girders, wide flange beams and stub hangers, and bracing elements. It cantilevers over 60 feet from the face of the building and over 50 feet above grade.

Aluminum-framed cassettes, mimicking Ramada shade structures commonly found in the Rio Grande region, bolt to the bottom flanges of the steel substructure’s beams. To control deflection at the canopy’s supports where the building’s floor framing is cantilevered, the design team integrated encased structural steel framing into the concrete building’s structure.

Ehlert Bryan coordinated the structural design of the NOB and its canopies with the blast consultant Thornton Tomasetti, the Ramada cassette manufacturer (PWS International), and the architect (Page Architects).

Challenge

To have a successful canopy design, it was crucial to limit deflection at each structural element contributing to the overall deflection of the Ramada cassettes. The NOB structure included design features to provide necessary stiffness at each support point, but at the building corner where the third story cantilevers, the canopy piers didn’t extend down to a foundation.

Solution

The encased structural steel framing reduced the deflection at this building corner to a negligible magnitude. This framing also contributed to the capacity of the structure to withstand a progressive collapse event in the event that one of the columns adjacent to the cantilevered bay is removed.