San Francisco, CA
Genentech Building 3 is a research and development facility located in South San Francisco, California. This project was a retrofit of a critical biotech facility constructed in the 1980’s consisting of chevron CBF’s and pre-Northridge moment frames. The retrofit included bolted and pinned BRBs in standard and unique configurations. Among these were the use of an external steel buttress with horizontal BRBs, for accommodating the extremely congested site, as well as the first known use of spliced BRBs (BRBs fabricated and erected in 2 separate pieces), allowing the facility to remain operational during the retrofit. Project specific testing was required for the spliced BRBs with story drift demands as high as 5.8% and with CID values up to 1500 being achieved. The CoreBrace BRBs were found to meet the exceedingly rigid project requirements and the project was successfully completed. The development of these braces is reported on in the first quarter of the 2014 Engineering Journal.
