L.A. Fuess Partners Portfolio
Stonebriar Mall
Architect: ELS
Location: Frisco, TX
This 2-story, 947,000 sq. ft. regional retail mall with a 196,000 sq. ft. 3rd floor cinema was recognized with an Engineering Award of Excellence by the American Institute of Steel Construction. The Stonebriar Centre, while a traditional, albeit large, regional shopping mall in some respects, is also a dynamic public space that serves as a major local landmark. The finishes above the public areas of the complex are nearly exclusively exposed structural steel, which is used to highlight and identify major spaces. The defining characteristic of the project is “light”, both in terms of natural lighting and lightness of structure. The central concourse is defined by a 1,500-foot long raised slit in the roof, as if a gentle sine-wave curve were cut into a flat roof and then raised up along its edges. Constructed using a series of king-post trusses assembled from wideflange steel top chords, tubular steel compression struts, tension rods, and steel rod bracing, the undulating roof bears lightly on a diagonal tubular steel truss framing the clerestory glass. Secondary spaces are defined by a variety of truss systems incorporating, in one area, a tubular steel “bicycle wheel” truss that appears to float above the floor and supports a truncated cone shaped roof. At the main entry, access from the upper level parking deck is across a pedestrian bridge supported and covered by a leaf-like structure of steel and glass. The roof structure above the children’s carousel is an inverted carousel of steel tubes and rods. The intricate detail of the exposed structural steel elements of this center, which are the substance of its architecture, were achieved through close collaboration between the Architect and the Structural Engineer.
