Nanjing Sifang Art Museum

This 30,000sf museum devoted to art and architecture sits at the entrance to the Contemporary International Practical Exhibition of Architecture and is composed of winding gallery passages that culminate in a topmost suspended gallery. The structure of this floating gallery consists of a tube system with Pratt trusses in its horizontal and vertical planes. For gravity loads, all diagonals in the walls of the tube are in tension, and verticals are in compression. The diagonals in the floor and roof system provide structural continuity and resist lateral wind and earthquake forces.