Sacramento, California · 2024
Civic Atrium
A civic library and administration building organised around a cable-net atrium wall — daylight, security, and a public-facing envelope in one system.
The commission
Civic Atrium consolidates a community library, council chambers, and civic offices around a ten-storey daylit hall. The north wall is a cable-net glazed façade; the remaining elevations combine unitised curtain wall, terracotta rainscreen, and a civic stone plinth.
Verticea was novated with the design-build team. We engineered the cable-net geometry, glass makeup, and support steel; wrote the performance specification for the rainscreen; and led thermal, blast, and acoustic studies required for a public building. Accessibility at thresholds, bird-friendly frit, and long-term maintenance access were designed in, not added later.
The project is a demonstration that civic work can be both generous and rigorous — an envelope that invites the public while meeting the durability a city expects over fifty years.
Key outcomes
- Cable-net atrium engineered for seismic drift
- Bird-friendly frit without flattening the architecture
- Fifty-year maintenance strategy written into the spec
Expertise provided: Façade consulting · Materials science · Thermal & physics
