Designing a Church 1

[user2006]

Hi Guys,

I am designing a 25,000 sq. ft. church in California (Lancaster, Los Angeles), the roof is going to be wood truss so I have no problem with that (as far as the design …).

please follow the link below which will lead you to a PDF file including some floor plans, elevations and sections of this project.

http://groups-beta.google.com:80/group/download_my_files?hl=en

(The file name is the-church. PDF, you can do right click and save it to your computer.)

Here are the most preliminary questions that came to my attention:

1- At the main building there is no walls and columns on the middle, will it be okay if I consider just the exterior walls to transfer the shear loads?(what else I can do?)
2- Do I need to use concrete block wall or wood stud wall would be fine?
3- How should I design the glass frame under the roof because they suppose to transfer both shear and vertical loads?
4- What do I need to know about designing the tower?


Because it is my first time doing such a project your comments and inputs are greatly appreciated regarding the most important things I should concern about. Thanks,

Regards,
User2k6

 

[JLNJ]

Your main challenges as I see them will be:

- One side seems to be all glass which makes your diaphragm work harder to distribute the forces to the available shear walls.

- The tower seems also to be glass and doesn't have much structure to rest upon. The architect will need to give you some room in his floor plan for the tower support structure. (The architect should know this!)

Be careful. There are many pitfalls in this type of project and often the (small) fee makes it tough to thoroughly investigate them all!

 

[whyun]

Design authority in California is summarized in the following pdf.

http://www.dca.ca.gov/pels/pubs/building_design_auth.pdf

 

[user2006]

one more time I would like to thank all of you for your suggestions and comments.