MD Anderson and Vaughn Construction, as well as the project team of WHR Architects and Haynes Whaley Associates, celebrated a significant milestone with the topping out of Mid-Campus Building 1 (formally named the Administrative Support Building) on December 22, 2009, nearly one year to the day of the record-setting MAT foundation pour. The topping out celebration took place on the 5th floor of the building. Nearly 1200 attendants were on hand to enjoy the food, presentations, and hoisting of the 21 foot and 26 foot trees on top of the building.

The 26-story, $350 million project, currently scheduled for completion in 2012, will serve as home to the various MD Anderson employees who are currently occupying eight locations around the Med Center, as well as set the precedent for development and architecture for future Mid-Campus expansion. In addition to the MAT foundation concrete pour of 17,500 cubic yards on December 19, 2008, the building used another 105,000 cubic yards of concrete, 15,000 tons of rebar and 680,000 lbs and 200 miles of post-tensioning cables.  The project averaged 385 cubic yards of concrete per day, 7 days a week, with nearly 13,000 concrete trucks visting the site over a one year period.

After one week of internship, I have made a dive headlong into a highly interactive experience and met a lot of smart people. I am particularly surprised to see that so much work goes on outside of the normal design work.

Beginning with marketing, the busy and seemingly unpredictable schedules of Derick, Larry, and Amy have showed me how important marketing and public relations are to the company’s success. After shadowing Derick and meeting with Amy, it has been interesting to see these people scramble to meet deadlines, build relationships, and put together important presentations.

Meeting with Virginia and Robert has exposed me to the day to day operations that must exist to keep this office running smoothly.

Throughout the week I met several engineers, however my meetings with Wally and Marco were special highlights. I was exposed to the “art” of structural engineering and some of the tools that help make it come together: AutoCAD and RISA.

After meeting with all of these engineers, I have learned that the common denominator to good engineering practice is experience. The intuition that goes with the development and design of a building’s structure seems to require a lot of experience and knowledge of codes and standards.

I have learned a lot from everybody, and I was pleasantly surprised to find that I would be learning about public relations and office management in addition to just engineering. Together, it seems like Haynes Whaley has their business running like a well oiled and well “engineered” machine and it really is a special experience to be a part of the office; I am eager to learn more from them over the next two weeks.

I arrive at 8:30 each morning and start reading engineering magazines or textbooks, or glance over old plans and see if they made any more sense today than they did yesterday. The plans are a lot like puzzles, each day I learn another thing about Engineering, which is like finding another piece of the puzzle, and the plans make more sense. It’s a thoroughly gratifying process.

At some point Derick pokes his head in, tells us who we (Daniel Tepper is the other intern) are meeting that day, and then we watch Derick take on some marketing errand, be it a conference call, editing a brochure, or setting up a lunch date. Eventually we are sent back to our office with a simple task, like cataloging newspaper articles, or more engineering reading, which (frankly) isn’t so simple, or looking up who’s who in the development world. We may go sit in on a meeting for marketing, or we may go meet with someone in the office and talk to them about what they do, or what project they are working on now.

So far we have met with Virginia (accounting), Marco (engineering), Wally (engineering), Robert (Chief Operating Officer), and though we have not yet met with Amy (marketing), I think I know what she and Kim do because we see them all of the time while shadowing Derick.

The day ends with more Derick-shadowing, another hour or so spent doing marketing chores or engineering reading, and then a satisfying but chilly walk to my car, and a perfectly straight drive home (I make one turn on my entire drive home).

Basketball
Here is a recap of this year’s final basketball game between HWA and Morris Architects as described by the team’s coach, Brian Lawrence: ”With HWA leading the entire game, Morris mounts a comeback. With 10 seconds to go in regulation and HWA leading with the score 46-45, Jessica Albert (HWA) gets fouled and makes both free throws in a high pressure (one-on-one free throw situation) which makes the score 48-45. Anthony Ferguson of Morris Architects then  hits a 3 pointer from the top of the key to tie the game at 48-48, sending the game into overtime.”  HWA players were  steady and skilled and would go on to win the final game, 61-57.  As a team, HWA was 10-13 at the free throw line.

Softball
The coach was available for comment and offered the following information. In the Spring of 2009, HWA was 10 wins and 4 losses and, in the Fall of 2009, the team went to 8 and 6. If the weather continues to improve, the championship playoffs for the Fall League will be held Monday, January 11, 2010 at the Houston Sportsplex on South Main. Games will be played under single elimination until one team is left to claim bragging rights for the 2009 Fall season.

Bowling
Two HWA teams fought long and hard for their position this year. Out of 33 teams, HWA Kingpins came in 14th and HWA Pinheads came in 18th. Twelve weeks of grueling competition flew by as both teams tried to reach the top and lay claim to the 1st place trophy. Maybe next year. Congratulations to Brian L., Jack H., Oscar V., James D., and Briana Lawrence of the Kingpins and to Charles E., Quyen T., Paul R., Stuart B., and Angel Trieu of the Pinheads.

We PRACTICE THE ART OF STRUCTURAL ENGINEERING. Thank you — clients, partners, and friends — for inspiring us to deliver creative structural design solutions each day. This Christmas season, our Houston, Reston, and Austin offices honor you with charitable donations for three deserving organizations.

St. Vincent’s House provides social services and community outreach programs for the disadvantaged, underserved,  and working poor families of Galveston.

The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society and its National Capital Area Chapter’s mission is to cure leukemia, lymphoma, Hodgkin’s disease, and myeloma, and improve the quality of life of patients and their families.

The Arc of the Capital Area in Austin, Texas provides personalized, community-based services that improve the quality of life for adults and children with developmental disabilities.

Haynes Whaley Associates wishes you and your loved ones peace, hope, and joy throughout the holidays and the coming year.

The completion schedule for Project Heartbeat redefined the term “fast-track.” The project was kicked off by the design/builder, Linbeck, in late March 2009 and the building needed to be ready for occupancy by October 1st, 2009, leaving only 6 months for design and construction. Haynes Whaley Associates was engaged right out of the gates by providing Linbeck and the architect, Philo Wilke Partnership, with several bay studies for layout and pricing so that the most economical and architecturally efficient scheme could be chosen.

Due to the long lead-time for structural steel, it was decided to issue an early structural package in mid- April. The rest of the structure, including foundations and concrete tilt-up panel drawings, was issued three days later.

Just as the initial dust settled, an unexpected twist was thrown into the mix. The afternoon before drilling commenced for the foundations, Haynes Whaley was notified that the building square footage had been reduced. Haynes Whaley quickly responded and produced a revised foundation plan by the end of that day, as well as a revised roof plan and panel drawings a few days later.

The resulting project has been a success and is on schedule. It is instinctive to think “it can’t be done” when presented with what seems like an insurmountable task. Project Heartbeat serves as a great example of how a team can really work together and do the “unthinkable.”

In the early morning on Sunday, July 12, 2009, a helicopter lifted the last 30 ft section of the pipe-shaped spire into the air. Two steel workers, perched high up in a temporary “crow nest,” efficiently completed the bolted splice connection before the helicopter released its precarious load. This completes the final installation of the iconic architectural tiara and spire design atop the new Methodist Hospital Outpatient Center. The architectural design was accomplished by WHR Architects. The general contractor for the project is Hensel Phelps Construction Co..

The 1.6 million square feet new outpatient care facility is located in the Texas Medical Center at the intersection of Main, Fannin, and University. The project is a new 25-story facility that will provide 23-hour outpatient care services. The project consists of a basement that houses a high-bay truck court and two below-grade visitor valet parking levels, 12 levels of above-grade parking that offers parking for approximately 1,200 vehicles, and 11 levels of programmed spaces that contain state-of-the-art imaging, surgical and diagnostic suites, laboratories, offices, and support facilities.

The exterior architectural design of the Outpatient Care Center features a three-side curvilinear building perimeter, modeled after the Wankel combustion engine, gradually emerging from a rectangular building base. The Wankel shape terminates above the building’s roof in the form of a sloping screen wall with heights above the roof that vary from 12 ft on the east side to a maximum of 52 ft at the western-most building corner. The screen wall is crowned with a “tiara” that is shaped by a varying-geometry open lattice work with stainless steel panels finishes. Three pipe spires, located near the apex of the screen wall, further accentuate the tiara design. The tip of the tallest spire measures 565’-6” above the street level.

The spire sections consist of large-diameter steel pipes with prefinished high-performance paint coating to prevent corrosion. The pipe sections are spliced via bolted connections that have been designed in collaboration with the architects to achieve the desired appearance and yet offer the ease in field installation without welding that would have compromised the paint coating. Except for the last section of the tall spire, all sections were erected with the project tower crane. It was decided to dismantle the tower crane and to erect the last section with a helicopter because the spire final height would have been in conflict with the crane boom.

The unique design of the tiara and spires atop the building will make the Methodist Outpatient Care Center unequivocally the new landmark in the Texas Medical center.