Delivering El Paso’s first purpose-built children’s museum

Structurally integrating experiential design

Working in close collaboration with the project team, Arup designed the primary framing of La Nube’s intricate four-story children’s climber structure, ensuring that it integrates seamlessly with the surrounding exhibit. Our structural experts developed an approach that allowed the signature long-span helical stairs to wrap uninterrupted around the climber structure. Given El Paso’s location in a seismic zone, the structure’s lateral braced frame system is also designed to resist earthquakes of moderate intensity.

Beyond the atrium, Arup worked with the exhibit designer to implement the museum structure for all exhibit components within La Nube. Arup’s structural team optimized the museum’s long-span structural system through the performance of detailed footfall comfort analysis on every exhibit level. The long-span framing approach provides flexibility for the museum’s exhibits while improving mobility and visitor experience.  

Engineering El Paso's first smoke-controlled atrium

As La Nube contains El Paso’s first smoke-controlled atrium, we delivered a performance-based design of the smoke system to optimize a mechanical system fit to accommodate the large interior space. In addition, we performed a state-of-the-art Computational Fluid Dynamic (CFD) model to greatly decrease the size and cost of a prescriptive smoke control system. This approach included the installation of fans to sit at the top of the atrium’s climber that are powerful enough to exhaust 300,000 cubic feet per minute. To ensure the design was achievable, the project team worked closely with our mechanical experts to ensure that the central atrium could be leveraged as the main air return strategy to reduce and minimize return air duct requirements.