To avoid the elongated monotony of a barrel vault, Alan Grant and Large Architecture designed the sleek shell of the LeMay Museum with an irregular form that recalls the hood scoop of a vintage car.
The roof of the 165,000-square-foot museum shelters the building's concrete structure, which includes four tiers of polished-concrete ramps, and spans a roughly 1-acre (400-by-110-foot) footprint.
Nineteen glulam beams arc 104 feet above the exhibit floor.
The glulam arches, spaced 23 feet o.c., serve as the roof's primary support. Between the beams, 757 purlins spaced 4 feet o.c. form the roof's secondary support.
A standing-seam metal roof finishes the building.
Museum entrance
Transverse section through the building
