Chase Center Arena, San Francisco, CA, USA
Customer Project
-
01
Chase Center Arena, San Francisco, USA (© Enclos Corp.)
-
01
Arena Glass Facade at Entrance Area (© Enclos Corp.)
-
01
Glass Facade Interior View (© Enclos Corp.)
-
01
Facade Supporting Structure in RFEM (© Enclos Corp.)
-
01
© Enclos Corp.
-
01
Chase Center Arena, San Francisco, CA, USA
-
01
Dlubal Software for Structural Analysis and Design of Aluminium Structures
-
04
Facade Supporting Structure in RFEM (© Enclos Corp.)
-
04
Chase Center Arena, San Francisco, USA (© Enclos Corp.)
-
04
Arena Glass Facade at Entrance Area (© Enclos Corp.)
-
04
Glass Facade Interior View (© Enclos Corp.)
-
04
© Enclos Corp.
-
04
Chase Center Arena, San Francisco, CA, USA
-
04
Dlubal Software for Structural Analysis and Design of Aluminium Structures
Chase Center Arena is the newest addition to Mission Bay in San Francisco. The state-of-the-art sports and entertainment center features 18,000 seats. The arena will host approximately 200 events annually.
Architects |
Kendall/Heaton Associates, USA www.kendall-heaton.com MANICA Architecture, USA www.manicaarchitecture.com |
Engineer |
Magnusson Klemencic Associates, USA www.mka.com |
Building Construction | Mortenson Clark Construction Joint Venture, USA |
Planning and Installation of Facade |
Enclos Corp., USA www.enclos.com |
Model
The mixed-use development was designed by MANICA Architecture and Kendall Heaton Architects. The construction was managed by Mortenson Clark Joint Venture. The arena will also have 100,000 ft2 of retail space, a 35,000 ft2 plaza, and a 5.5-acre bayfront park.
Enclos was commissioned to plan and install the glass facade in the arena. The Enclos team fabricated and installed 160,000 ft2 of rain-screen mega-panels and secondary structure. Each mega-panel consists of roughly 7,500 panels with different dimensions. The mega-panels hang from a secondary steel structure utilizing unique trusses, transoms, and custom anchors to the primary structure. The facade includes a total of 40,000 ft2 of curtainwall on architecturally exposed structural steel (AESS) with an additional 5,000 ft2 of storefront on AESS.
The Arena is being constructed as part of a larger mixed-use development, including the Office Towers and Gatehouse. The arena is the new home of the Golden State Warriors and opened in September 2019, in time for the NBA season. The project has been designed to achieve LEED Gold certification.
Structural Design in RFEM
Enclos utilized Dlubal’s FEA software RFEM to model the Chase arena for various purposes during the pre-sale bidding process and design-assist phase. "The program was very useful for fast interoperability between Rhino + GH / Excel / RFEM. RFEM remains a very fast and efficient way compared to many other programs the Enclos engineering team has used, continues to use, and has used alternately," according to the Enclos engineers.
RFEM was utilized for the Chase Center Arena project as follows:
- Creation of the FEA model based on the proposed system by the clients / consultants
- Improvement suggestions by Enclos for the engineers' proposals
- Creation of a completely new secondary framing system by Enclos
- Report reactions based on Enclos's framing system
- Steel checks, deflection checks, reaction output - visualized in Rhino
Project Location
1 Warriors Way
Write Comment...
Write Comment...
Contact Us
Do you have any further questions or need advice? Contact us via phone, email, chat or forum or search the FAQ page, available 24/7.

In the case of open cross-sections, the torsional load is removed mainly via secondary torsion, since the St. Venant torsional stiffness is low compared to the warping stiffness.
- How do I apply wind load on members of open structures?
- I want to create a mapped mesh for a circular hole plate. Is it possible to generate such a mesh in RFEM?
- My member is oriented at the inclination of principal axis when I import from SHAPE-THIN to a 2D RFEM model. How do I fix this?
- How can I get the member end forces to design the connections?
- Which Dlubal Software programs are required to calculate membrane and tensile structures?
- I would like to analyze cable and tensile structures. Is it possible to use RFEM or RSTAB for this?
- In connection with a calculation according to the large deformation analysis, I get significantly smaller deformations than for a calculation according to the linear static or second-order analysis. How is this possible?
- Is it possible to use a cross-section from SHAPE‑THIN 9 in older versions of RFEM or RSTAB?
- I need to define different types of lateral intermediate restrains for a single element in RF-/STEEL EC3. Is this possible?
- How is it possible to consider the real cross-section geometry of member elements in RWIND Simulation?
Programs Used for Structural Analysis