Delivering El Paso’s first purpose-built children’s museum
La Nube STEAM Discovery Center
Designed to be a uniquely hybrid institution located in El Paso’s downtown Arts District, La Nube STEAM Discovery Center merges the educational aspects of a science center with the experiences of a children’s museum for learners of all ages. As the first purpose-built children’s museum in El Paso, La Nube sought to develop a meaningful space for children and their families within the region. Spanish for “the cloud,” La Nube’s distinctive cloud-like architecture is a celebration of the surrounding El Paso community and the desert’s expansive skies.
In partnership with Gyroscope and Jordan Foster Construction, Arup worked with Exigo and Snøhetta to provide architecture and engineering services for La Nube, including structural, mechanical, electrical, plumbing, and fire engineering, as well as audio-visual, information technology, and acoustics design consulting.
La Nube contains four interactive levels with exhibits providing immersive and experiential learning environments for children and adults alike. Inside the museum, a dramatic four-story climber exhibit welcomes children to take risks, practice problem-solving, make discoveries, and learn. La Nube’s exterior boasts an engaging urban landscape complete with outdoor café seating, misting poles, and other play areas integrated with native plantings. This new facility, brought to life by a dedicated community and team, is a testament to public-private partnerships and the power of imagination to enrich culture.
Structurally integrating experiential design
Working in close collaboration with the project team, Arup designed the primary framing of La Nube’s intricate four-story children’s climber structure, ensuring that it integrates seamlessly with the surrounding exhibit. Our structural experts developed an approach that allowed the signature long-span helical stairs to wrap uninterrupted around the climber structure. Given El Paso’s location in a seismic zone, the structure’s lateral braced frame system is also designed to resist earthquakes of moderate intensity.
Beyond the atrium, Arup worked with the exhibit designer to implement the museum structure for all exhibit components within La Nube. Arup’s structural team optimized the museum’s long-span structural system through the performance of detailed footfall comfort analysis on every exhibit level. The long-span framing approach provides flexibility for the museum’s exhibits while improving mobility and visitor experience.
The opening of La Nube is a culmination of years of planning and hard work from community leaders, taxpayers, donors, contractors, and creatives. We are honored to contribute to such a significant project for our community. It’s heartwarming to finally see children enjoy the space designed to expand their educational opportunities while reflecting our distinct culture and climate.
Engineering El Paso's first smoke-controlled atrium
As La Nube contains El Paso’s first smoke-controlled atrium, we delivered a performance-based design of the smoke system to optimize a mechanical system fit to accommodate the large interior space. In addition, we performed a state-of-the-art Computational Fluid Dynamic (CFD) model to greatly decrease the size and cost of a prescriptive smoke control system. This approach included the installation of fans to sit at the top of the atrium’s climber that are powerful enough to exhaust 300,000 cubic feet per minute. To ensure the design was achievable, the project team worked closely with our mechanical experts to ensure that the central atrium could be leveraged as the main air return strategy to reduce and minimize return air duct requirements.
La Nube contains four interactive levels with exhibits providing immersive and experiential learning environments for children and adults alike © Casey Dunn
Inside the museum, a dramatic four-story climber exhibit welcomes children to take risks, practice problem-solving, make discoveries, and learn © Casey Dunn
Arup worked with the exhibit designer Gyroscope to implement the museum structure for all exhibit components within La Nube © Casey Dunn
Snøhetta / Gyroscope / Jordan Foster Construction
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