The completed Phase 2 and 3 of the Electronic Arts Canada Inc. headquarters in Burnaby are LEED Silver certified. Phase 1 and 2 are designed following the same fundamental structural principals, with the central hub and street serving as the structural backbone of the building.
The “hub” is an elevator core and stairwell located at the building centre. Five four-storey structural steel derricks, set along the 400 foot glass-enclosed street length, act as visually open, yet strong seismic braces. The 12 metre structural steel framing grid connects diagonally to the linear “street” corridor, and is fire protected through a sprinkler system to allow a painted exposed steel frame to decorate the ceiling of the office spaces. A full size soccer field sits atop a three storey parking garage built with cast-in-place concrete beams and hollowcore slabs.
This complex includes offices, theatres, food services, audio and video studios and the world’s largest motion capture studio. Few projects offer such opportunities for expressing honest structural steel framing as this approximately 206,000 square feet, five-storey complex.
Images: © Ed White Photography, © Nic Lehoux Photography