Child Care Center

The new 50,000sf ESPN Child Care Center is a child–focused day care facility for children of employees at the Disney-owned national sports broadcast corporation. The building achieves a minimum LEED Silver Certification with strategies including use of local, natural materials, appropriate building orientation and lots of daylighting and views.

The ESPN Child Care Center provided interesting loading conditions to consider in the design and detailing of the joists and the roof structure. Due to the high seismic loads, the joist designs had to incorporate the detailing of the roof diaphragm, including the struts and chords.

Steel joists provided opportunities to reduce total steel weight, to add more space above to open up interior spaces and to efficiently provide the barrel shaped roofs that are the focal point of the building. Joist seat extensions allowed for long roof overhangs with a shallow profile integrated into the barrel joists.