The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures sits on Los Angeles' Miracle Mile, on the LACMA campus alongside three other Renzo Piano buildings. The 300,000 square foot, $388 million project preserves and expands the 1939 May Company building, now known as the Saban Building. The 1946 additions were removed and replaced with a sphere (Dolby Theater) that holds a 1,000-seat theater and a rooftop terrace with panoramic views of Hollywood. The museum earned LEED Gold certification in 2020 and has been recognized with an AIA Merit Award and an ENR Global Best Projects Award.

My work on AMPAS spanned from 2016 through 2017 as a project engineer. I focused on structural steel for the May Co. building, procurement for the Dolby Theater prefab glass and concrete structure and methane barriers and seating specifications for the 300-seat Ted Mann Theater. The structural work for MayCo. required a 1:1 replacement of the historic building's steel elements, a process that demanded precise coordination to preserve the original structure while meeting current code. The methane barriers were critical given the site's proximity to the La Brea Tar Pits, where naturally occurring methane gas poses an ongoing risk that has to be actively managed in any construction nearby.