Business View Magazine | Volume 8, Issue 6

48 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE VOLUME 8, ISSUE 6 Structural Engineering and Construction StructureCraft is delighted to help Lake Flato deliver beautiful and e icient timber structures. StructureCraft.com office buildings were coming online in San Antonio, and they wanted to be able to entice people to come to work in a different type of environment. Of course, they also loved the idea of reducing the carbon footprint as well.” The building is Texas’ first mass-timber office building and offers a vibrant mix of ground floor commercial retail, multi-tenant office spaces, and below grade parking organized around an open courtyard. A two-story porch wraps one corner, yielding views along Broadway Street, one of the city’s main thoroughfares. Lake|Flato served as the design architect, collaborating with Architect of Record BOKA Powell “StructureCraft out of Vancouver, Canada did the structural engineering for the building,” Wascher says. “They manufactured the floors and roof systems using a system called DLT, which is dowel laminated timber. It’s basically 2x4s, or 2x8s in our situation, laid out vertically. They take dowels and pressure push them together, and that’s what makes the panels hold together. The system works out really well. We were able to get great spans.” The firm also worked closely with StructureCraft on the Hotel Magdalena project through the schematic design, design development, and construction development phases. “Hotel Magdalena is located on the former site of an old hotel from the 1950s – the Terrace Motor Hotel,” explains Associate Sophia Razzaque, who served as the Project Architect on the South Congress Avenue project. “It used to take up a larger site – there were multiple plots of land and over 300 keys for the hotel. Willie Nelson ended up buying the adjacent property and turning it into the Austin Opry House, which was basically a live music venue. Musicians used to stay at the hotel and I think, over time, it just got run down.” Lake|Flato’s five-building complex design was influenced by the existing heritage Live