Designed and constructed simultaneously, the Student Services and Technology Buildings, utilized a Type II Fire Resistive with sprinklers.  The buildings are 5 stories in height with a rectangular footprint.  Both buildings have a partial subterranean basement that connecst to an underground utility tunnel. The subgrade structures are constructed of reinforced concrete.  The above grade structure consists of structural steel with metal deck on concrete fill floor/roof construction. Although the main structural systems of the buildings are straightforward, the framing for the exterior wall was quite the opposite.

The exterior wall system is an undulating form consisting of "bulges" and "flaps" that extend away from the building floor plans.  They wrap around building corners and "peel away" from the building floor plates.  Their structural system consists of steel tube frameworks that are infilled with metal studs.  All of this secondary framing is tied back to the building's main structural system.  To engineer the support structure, 3-dimensional computer modeling was utilized to account for the various combination of wind/earthquake and gravity loads imposed on the steel frames.

To screen the cooling tower located on the Technology building, a large wall serves as a screen for the equipment as well as a backdrop for 23 foot high "LATTC" letters.

Design and detailing of the exterior wall system required a tight collaboration between the architects and the structural engineers.  To convey information in a comprehensive manner, both architectural and structural drawings were intertwined to best organize the information presented in the construction documents (i.e. structural drawings were incorporated into the architectural drawings so that all major information pertaining to the exterior wall system was in one place).