Hyundai Cheonan Global Learning Center

The Hyundai Cheonan Global Learning Center is a 45,000m2 vocational training and educational research facility for car mechanics and new Hyundai Motors products. The building includes spaces for lecture halls, maintenance and sales training, and photography. The four-story building is partially recessed into a hillside and clad in glass and expanded metal mesh of varying opacity.

In anticipation of the building program changing over time, the structural design accounts for spatial flexibility and changes in live loading requirements. The primary structure consists of fabricated steel plate girders typically spanning 16m between steel wide-flange columns. There are multiple column transfers over the building height to accommodate the varying architectural layout. Cast-in-place concrete “superslabs” have cylindrical voids at mid-depth to reduce concrete. The primary lateral system are cores composed of composite shear walls. At the entry facade, the typical steel wide flange columns are substituted with closely spaced structural steel mullions. Half the mullions are full-height and support the horizontal truss of the entrance canopy while the other half stop at the truss to allow greater permeability at ground level.