Bruce Springsteen Center for American Music in Fast Company
Bruce Springstseen Center for American Music, which recently opened at Monmouth University in New Jersey, is featured in Fast Company!
DeSimone’s in-house teams worked in concert to design and integrate the highly sustainable, hybrid, mass timber and steel structure—even engineering the distinctive façades of this new, 30,000 square-foot cultural institution. Our approach streamlined and expedited the fabrication, construction, and delivery of this net-zero-ready, all-electric, LEED Gold-targeted building.
In the article, Nate Berg interviews Executive Director Bob Santelli—well known for helping create iconic music-inspired museum spaces, including the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, the Grammy Museum, and the Woody Guthrie Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma—who initially approached Bruce Springsteen about creating a museum. Soon after, COOKFOX came on board as architect, as well as DeSimone’s structural engineers, detailers, and façade and building envelope experts.
The idea, as architect Rick Cook, AIA, says in the article, was to tell a story about postindustrial and working-class America. This came to life in the materials chosen and the nature of the design. The rectangular, two-story structure is clad in glass and weathering steel and sits on a meadow of grasses and flowers. Inside, the main spaces are comprised of sustainably sourced mass timber.
Our multi-disciplinary, in-house DeSimone team designed and integrated the mass timber core and steel perimeter structure that support the main portion of the building, as well as the long-span steel structure that creates the open, column-free theatre. We also integrated weathering steel façades and a glass curtain wall façade with both timber and steel structural elements. Concrete and masonry add strength and stability—making this a truly hybrid structure.
By modeling the mass timber and steel in a single, integrated, 3D Tekla model, featuring a process we call fabrication-ready modeling, our team efficiently resolved interfaces between glulam beams and columns, CLT floor panels, and steel components, bypassing the typical approach involving separate discipline models by multiple firms.
Read the full article and download a PDF here.
Download our fact sheet here.
Structural Engineers: Mark Plechaty, PE, Luis Ramirez, PE, Asim Khan, PE, and Alexandra Teniuch, PE
DeSimone Façade and Building Envelope Specialists: Benjamin Reich, AIA, Tony Zhang
Detailer: Kevin Tsai
Photo: Alex Ferrec/COOKFOX
