FAU Arts & Letters

The Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters at Florida Atlantic constructed a new classroom and office building that houses 14 classrooms, conference rooms, office space and a movie theater complex. It is anchored by a three-story atrium that is designed as a "main street" for the building.

With the project built adjacent to an existing operational structure on one side, existing operational roadways on two other sides, and limited space for staging on the other side, the space for construction was tight. The slab-on-grade provided very little available space for casting panels, which required casting panels outside the building's footprint. With the limited space available, the scheduling and sequencing became critical in order to meet the aggressive shell completion dates.

Tilt-Up roof panel sections were used for the theater roof structure in order to meet the stringent sound and acoustical value upgrades. The full theater area is enclosed with solid Tilt-Up. This project shows the versatile uses for Tilt-Up including enhanced architectural appointments through reveals, recesses and roof structure flat panels, providing enhanced sound containment capabilities and lightweight structural composite panels for the rooftop equipment structure.