Napa, CA
Market: Multifamily
Size: 49,803 SF
Architect: Urban Building Workshop
General Contractor: Pacific West Companies
FTF provided structural-engineering services for Napa Apartments, a completed 51-unit multifamily development in downtown Napa. The project includes three residential buildings supported on reinforced-concrete mat foundations, with a staggered construction sequence that began with Building 3, followed by its twin, Building 1, and then Building 2.
A key structural-design consideration was the open exterior-wall layout along the longitudinal direction of the buildings, which includes large window and balcony-door openings. To support this architectural vision, FTF designed long shear walls along the central spine of the buildings, allowing the floor and roof diaphragms to cantilever out toward the exterior walls.
The project also required garages for many of the residential units, while preserving flexibility for the unit layouts above. To achieve this, FTF designed many of the second-floor shear walls as discontinuous elements supported by steel beams, allowing the garage configuration below to be accommodated without dictating the residential layout above.
