Left to right: John & Catherine Gander and Charlotte & Larry Whaley

Haynes Whaley Associates and Affiliated Engineers, Inc. (AEI) participated as Gold Sponsors for the fifth annual Night at Nemours gala to benefit Nemours/Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children.  Proceeds from this year’s event will support specialized care for children with traumatic injury, ensuring that the hospital’s trauma team has the resources it needs.  Gala proceeds will also help to continue safety education and injury prevention programs for parents and children.  Larry and Charlotte Whaley and Catherine and I were pleased to be part of this outstanding event.  In addition, our Reston and Houston offices are proud to be partnering with Nemours (www.nemours.org), FKP Architects (www.fkp.com), and AEI (www.aei.com) on the Nemours/Alfred I. DuPont Hospital for Children – Delaware Expansion.

© Maxwell MacKenzie 2009

Patriots Plaza II and III, located in the heart of Southwest Washington, DC, have been awarded LEED Core & Shell Gold Certification, making them part of the largest speculative office project in the District to receive a LEED Gold rating. Haynes Whaley’s engineers collaborated with the project team, including Trammell Crow Company, Gensler, B&A Consulting Engineers, and Helix Constructors, to design a facility that meets new government security standards, is marketable to private sector tenants, minimizes the impact to the environment and is energy efficient. Patriots Plaza II and III perform 14% better than ASHRAE 9.1, utilized over 20% of recyclable and regional building materials, and recycled more than 80% of the construction waste.

Patriots Plaza is a three-phase, 1 million sf office complex that is more than 80% leased by the General Services Administration for multiple U.S. Government agencies, including the FBI, FEMA, Health and Human Services, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Our engineers provided structural design services for the entire complex, which was the first market-driven urban complex designed to meet post 9/11 security standards for a Level IV facility. Patriots Plaza’s high security features include progressive collapse avoidance, a hardened structure to resist blast loading, special column designs in the below-grade parking garage, and intricate detailing of reinforcement to increase the ability of the structure to confine damage and withstand attack.

Troy Jamail, Principal

Matt Strickland, Principal

Troy Jamail and Matt Strickland, formerly with Parking Planners, entered into a new venture with structural engineering firm Haynes Whaley Associates. The new firm’s name is HWA Parking and they are incorporated by the state of Texas.  The new firm will provide analysis, planning, design and operational assessments for new and renovated garages and parking lots.

Under the new alliance, Haynes Whaley Associates and HWA Parking will offer their clients both structural engineering services and parking planning services under a single contract. Or, each firm will provide their respective services independently as needed by their clients.

Jamail and Strickland have a combined 25 years of planning and design experience and have completed more than 200 parking projects. Haynes Whaley Associates is ranked #11 on the Houston Business Journal’s 2009 list of top area Civil and Structural Engineering firms, the highest ranking by a firm solely offering structural engineering services. Haynes Whaley Associates also has offices in Austin, Texas and Reston, Virginia. The affiliation of these two firms will bring to their clients a new approach to parking planning backed by the stability of a well established firm. 

“Despite the economy, we think now is the perfect time for this partnership with Haynes Whaley. We are giving clients a full menu of services and the flexibility to choose what is best for their project. We offer the value of a one-stop shop plus the ‘buy only what you need’ option. We know clients are more concerned about value than ever, and this partnership provides it.” HWA Parking co-founder Matt Strickland said.

HWA Parking provides services to facility owners, developers, architects, and contractors on parking facilities for corporate, retail, hospitality, academic and residential projects. Jamail and Strickland’s project experience spans the globe and includes the Baylor Clinic and Hospital in the Houston Medical Center with HOK Architects; Brackenridge Park in San Antonio with Lake|Flato Architects; and Hines’ MainPlace development in downtown Houston.

Haynes Whaley Associates President and CEO, Larry Whaley, sees the alliance with HWA Parking as a very efficient way to design superior parking facilities.

“Haynes Whaley has always been proactive and creative in the design process to efficiently integrate structural systems with the function of buildings. Our close affiliation with HWA Parking will certainly work to enhance our ability to deliver the most efficient parking facilities to our clients,” Whaley said.

Whaley adds, “I have worked with Troy and Matt for five years and am completely confident in their skills and abilities. Our respective areas of expertise complement each other well. And, very importantly, their ethics and business philosophy are very compatible with ours. Our common goal is to better serve our clients by combining our efforts whenever possible, or working independently when a client chooses.”  

This flexibility is a key differentiator for HWA Parking. Every client, regardless of type, will be able to select only those services necessary for each project’s specific requirements.

“In the world of building, parking structures are somewhat unique in that, in order to be successful, the technical aspects of vehicles and their movement and ’storage’ largely dictate many of the design decisions and so drive much of the overall architecture of the facility,” Kim Monroe, AIA, a partner at Lake|Flato Architects, said. “In the past, we have encountered garage consultants who are relatively inflexible and rigid in their approach to design. Working with Troy on the Brackenridge Garage, however, was a very positive experience in that he is not only very knowledgeable about the technical ‘peculiarities’ of parking facilities (including project costs), but couples that well with a strong and sensitive feeling for good architectural design.”

The HWA Parking focus on end users maximizes owner value by creating functionally efficient parking solutions.

“We have worked with Matt on difficult projects, large and small, and have always benefitted from his outstanding client service,” Matt Mooney, Managing Principal for Corgan Associates, said. “Matt is a terrific team player and truly at the top of his game; his analytical skills and considerable depth of experience routinely helps us provide our clients with superior parking concepts that work brilliantly. I would recommend Matt without hesitation. He is a true professional and it is an absolute pleasure to work with him.”

Jamail and Strickland are both active members of the International Parking Institute, the National Parking Association, and the Texas Parking Association.
HWA Parking has offices in Houston and Austin.

About HWA Parking
HWA Parking works with facility owners, developers, architects, and contractors on parking facilities for corporate, retail, hospitality, academic and residential projects. Our custom parking solutions are rooted in functionality, cost-effectiveness and user preferences. HWA Parking is based in Texas with a portfolio of national and international projects. For more information, please contact Troy Jamail in Austin at troy.jamail@hwaparking or 512-306-8722. Contact Matt Strickland in Houston at matt.strickland@hwaparking.com or 713-458-7730.

This year, Haynes Whaley Associates received the Member Firm of the Year award for its commitment to marketing excellence, as well as long-time dedication to SMPS Houston through sponsorships, volunteerism, and continuing education speakers.

Derick Thompson, Haynes Whaley engineer and business developer, received the Rising Star award for his dedication to the chapter very early in his SMPS membership — for participation as a leader engaged in organizing member events and for his consistent contributions on the Programs and Membership committees. Congratulations, Derick!

Left to right: Derick Thompson, Amy Moen, Kim Baker, Myra Sides, Award Presenter Kay Lentz, Larry Whaley

The New York Times posted a story about Houston in today’s online edition titled “36 Hours in Houston.” Included among the “must-see” stops was Rice University’s Brochstein Pavilion, designed by Thomas Phifer and Partners and structurally engineered by Haynes Whaley’s Wally Ford. Author Denny Lee had this to say about the Brochstein Pavilion:

 The skyline goes up, up, up every year. But notable architecture also takes place near the ground. The campus at Rice University — a neo-Byzantine maze of rose-hued brick and cloisters — got a new glass heart in 2008, when the Brochstein Pavilion (rice.edu/brochstein) opened near the central quad. A Kubrick-esque box with floor-to-ceiling windows, the pavilion houses a cafe and media lounge, and has a fine-mesh trellis that extends like a mathematical plane in space. The structure is only one story, but it feels much taller — proof that not everything in Houston has to be big.

For the full article, click here: 36 Hours in Houston.

One major supplier of these buildings, Cover-All Building Systems, recently reached out to their customers with a warning regarding the structural integrity of some of their buildings related to combined wind and snow loadings. 

http://www.coverallfacts.net/

Haynes Whaley has recently been involved evaluating some of these very specialized buildings.  Based on our experience with this type of building, we recommend that owners hire a structural engineer to properly evaluate their existing buildings.

Fannie Mae Technology Center

Fannie Mae’s Technology Center in Urbana, MD is celebrating its 5th anniversary and the $1.7 million in energy savings it has realized as the first LEED certified data center in the nation – as reported in a recent Fannie Mae News Release. Haynes Whaley prides itself with being the structural engineer of record on this premier facility. Our staff worked at an accelerated pace with other project team members, including Gensler, EYP Mission Critical Facilities, Mark G. Anderson Consultants and Holder Construction Company, to design the 247,000 sf data center and office facility to LEED standards. With no guidance from previous LEED data center projects, the design team faced a multitude of challenges, but close collaboration and an innovative spirit resulted in success. In addition to incorporating energy-saving features into the design, regional materials were utilized, and 80% of the construction waste was recycled during construction. All of these factors contributed to a more environmentally responsible structure and to the facility’s LEED certification. Since the completion of the Fannie Mae Technology Center, Haynes Whaley has continued to be committed to sustainability with LEED Accredited Professionals on our staff. Many of our projects are working toward or have earned Silver, Gold or Platinum LEED certification.

With that, I would like to describe the “behind-the-scenes” and under-the-ground elements that made this project an engineering challenge from day one.

The structural foundation system for the entire project was designed using drilled and under-reamed piers founded at a depth of about 20 feet below existing grade.  There is a new connecting underground utility tunnel that links all of the structures with MEP services and connects to the existing tunnel system on campus.  Construction started with the two dormitories and even though Civil drawings indicated where the underground utilities were supposed to be, other existing utilities were found during pier construction.  As a result, we designed below-grade transfer girders with a few additional piers to redirect the weight of the five-story building columns into the ground.

Because of the expansive soils found throughout the site, the ground floor slabs were all structural, two-way flat slab designs, isolated from potential movement of clayey material that can swell or shrink with the change in moisture content from seasonal conditions or underground utility issues.  Load-bearing CMU walls, starting at the 2nd floor, continue to support a structural, two-way slab design.  The finish surfaces of the load-bearing CMU walls and concrete slab structure are exposed to view and required strict quality control to insure a quality finish and uniform coloration.  Fly ash mixed with concrete, is a pozzolan product that can make the concrete stronger, improve durability, and make the concrete more resistant to chemicals.  This was an important aesthetic issue since the concrete surfaces were to be left exposed.  A common percentage of fly ash added to concrete is around 25% but on this project, 50 to 70 percent fly ash content was used because of its performance qualities.  Fly ash is also a cost-effective resource and when added to concrete, the amount of cement that is necessary can be reduced.

The dining halls each have their unique shape but common structural framing elements.  Duncan’s dining hall is rectangular with interior, turned solid timber columns supporting, turned and tapered branches supporting the wood roof structure.  The exterior perimeter framing supports the roof structure and consists of wood flitch columns, detailed to be an integral part of the window system.  McMurtry’s dining hall is a circular design with twelve solid wood turned columns, 10 inches in diameter. Glue-laminated flitch beams with a 1 inch steel plate, along with an outer tension ring and inner compression ring were designed to create this column-free space that is 74 feet across in diameter.  Both structures utilize a high strength cabling and bracket system that is nearly invisible to the eye to provide lateral bracing for the structures.  Perimeter grade beams were designed to incorporate the below-grade mechanical distribution system that heats and cools the spaces.

The center structure to the project is the kitchen/servery where the students from both colleges interact at mealtime.  The exposed concrete ceiling structure is also a structural, two-way slab system and designed to integrate the lighting system and decorative recesses.  The 2nd floor structure is supported by 18 inch diameter concrete columns in the servery area and by load-bearing CMU walls in the kitchen area.  The second floor has a couple of libraries and private dining rooms for school functions.  The roof structure consisted of shallow steel framing members to create large open spaces for meeting.

The Master’s houses have the same foundation system and were constructed with load-bearing metal stud walls.  Some flitch columns and glue-laminated beams were used to lighten the structure and provide large, uninterrupted interior spaces.

Communication and an overall understanding of cooperation among the contractor, their subcontractors and design professionals made this project a success.

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.