SEAOSD HONORS LPA WITH STRUCTURAL ENGINEERING AWARD

During the Structural Engineering Excellence Awards on June 25, LPA Design Studios earned a top honor recognizing significant achievement and innovation.

LPA earned a 2026 Structural Engineers Association of San Diego (SEAOSD) Structural Engineering Excellence Award, part of an annual program recognizing the region’s most impactful projects and the professionals who deliver them.

SEAOSD honored the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) Mandell Weiss Theatre and Shops Seismic Improvements project in the Retrofit/Alterations category, celebrating the team’s structural analysis and design approach. This marks LPA’s sixth SEAOSD win and the second UCSD retrofit project to earn an Excellence Award, underscoring the strong, ongoing partnership the firm has built with the university.

The Mandell Weiss Theatre is the primary performance space for UCSD’s Department of Theatre and Dance and the home of the renowned La Jolla Playhouse, an institution central to San Diego’s cultural landscape. The team developed a seismic retrofit strategy that addressed the structural needs of the two‑building facility — the theater and the scene shop — while minimizing costs and allowing construction to move forward without disrupting the venue’s demanding performance schedule. “Coordinating this project meant navigating a maze of undocumented field conditions, many of them hidden behind custom-built scenery or tucked into makeshift storage rooms,” said Bryan Seamer, LPA Director of Structural Engineering. “Juliet Crowder, Peter Damore, Ben Ness, John Wilson and the rest of the team found innovative solutions that kept Rudolph and Sletten’s construction work moving and ensured performances could continue without missing a beat.”

To navigate the project’s constraints, the team choreographed construction in alternating zones, ensuring the theater could welcome audiences even as structural work progressed. Their efforts elevated the building’s seismic resilience within UCSD’s targeted performance and cost parameters. Key improvements ranged from bracing and strengthening existing structural elements to expanding a major seismic joint and fortifying column bases for uninterrupted load transfer.