Progress Ridge Town Square

Project: Progress Ridge Town Square
Location: Beaverton, Oregon

Architect: Ankrom Mosian Architecture

6720 SW Macadam

Portland, Oregon

97219

General Contractor: Robertson & Olson Construction, Inc.

Square footage: As noted in blog below

Status: To Be Completed Spring 2011

This project is being developed by Gramor Development and is to be completed approximately in the spring of 2011. The overall project size will provide 200,000 square feet of various retail and entertainment. It is being built between the cities of Tigard and Beaverton and is near the neighborhoods of Murray Hill and Bull Mountain. New Seasons grocery and Cinetopia will occupy the larger buildings with several retailers surrounding these businesses.

Cinetopia was designed by another office and Lewis and Van Vleet, Inc. designed the buildings AK, B-F and HJ in conjunction with Ankrom Mosian Architecture. My responsibilities were for buildings B through F and they will be covered here in this blog. The other buildings were designed by two other engineers in our office and are being constructed at the same time and will not be mentioned at this time. Also the construction phase is currently under way and will be updated as it proceeds.

Building B - 7,724 square feet.
Building C - 6,712 square feet.
Building D - 6,072 square feet.
Building E - 6,314 square feet.
Building F - 7,139 square feet.

Building B
This building is 49 feet wide by 158 feet long and has a roof height of approximately 20 feet. The roof diaphragm consist of plywood sheathing over plywood web I-joist and has a blocked diaphragm at each end. Down the longitudinal length of the building runs a series of glue-laminated beams of which the I-joist hang from. A mechanical also runs down the longitudinal center, 10 feet on either side of the grid centerline. This allows the mechanical engineer to place a unit at any location within that zone. A wood ledger is fastened to the metal studs for the joist to hang from and allows the studs to cantilever upwards for the parapet. The lateral loads were taken out in the longitudinal direction with short plywood shear panels on metal studs. In the transverse direction, the lateral forces were transferred into masonry wall piers.

Several styles of canopies were used around this building to match the style of the storefront. One is constructed of 10 inch channels and diagonal rods supporting them. Another series is perpendicular glulam beams supported again with diagonal rods. Both are covered with metal decking. On the west end of the building are a perpendicular beams and diagonal braces that are supporting metal deck on glulam beams running parallel with the building face. They requested to use Alaskan Cedar glulams.


Building C
This is a 49 foot wide building by 150 foot long building with the same roof height as building B. The construction of the building and some of the canopies is the same as building B. The only exception is the false tower located in the southeast corner of the building. On the east face of the building, the masonry extend to a level approximately 6 feet above the top of the main building parapet. The remainder of the height is framed with HSS columns and beams. On the south face it is framed with HSS columns and beams and no masonry piers. Storefront glass extends to a foot past the roof line and the remainder is siding. For appearances, the "look" is wrapped around over the roof and supported by a steel structure and covered in wood siding. A wood trellis wraps around the south and east face and dies on the roof zone

Building D
Width of this building is also 49 feet and is 121 feet long with the same roof elevation. This building is the same as building C other than mirrored and rotated. It has the same false tower as well.

Building E
This building has a completely different foot print than the other three previous buildings. The main width is 56 feet and the maximum length is 99 feet. Again the roof height is the same as the previous buildings.The northeast half of the building is diagonal slightly and has a tall tower entry. Originally this tower had a large canopy that fastened to the sides. The project architect at that time wanted this canopy to be movable so that it would be in the upward position to let sunlight in in the morning and block it in the evening. The structure for this canopy was designed and awaited the mechanical portion to be design. The canopy was 27 feet wide and cantilevered approximately 15 feet out. It was constructed of tapered wide flange beams with 2x6 joist spaced at 24 inches on center spanning between the tapered beams. A few months into the start of the project, this canopy was scraped and the tower was redesigned. The foot print of the tower became longer and narrower and the front was a grid work of 12 inch deep wide flange beams. Smaller canopies were used and the concept of a moving canopy abandoned. Many of the other features of this building mirror what has been designed on the three previous buildings.


Building F
Like building E, building F is a completely different design. For the most part it resembles buildings B-D with the exception of the northwest end of the building. At that end of the building there is a covered area and a portion of the shops utilize glass overhead doors. Originally this was designed with I-joist on the interior portion and 2x members for the exterior. Since then Alaskan Cedar glulam beams have been used to replace the I-joist and 2x joist. The glulams are spaced at 48 inches on center, roughly and 2x T & G spans between the beams.

Salem Senior Center

Project: Salem Senior Center

Location: Salem, Oregon

Architect: Peck Smiley Ettlin Architects

4412 SW Corbett

Portland, Oregon

97239

General Contractor: Todd Construction

Square footage: 32,000 sq. ft.

Status: Completed 2008.

The Salem Senior Center was my third project I worked on since I joined Lewis and Van Vleet. It was new a 2-story senior center located near downtown Salem, to the north.

The building is constructed primarily of steel. The roof originally was constructed with open-web wood chord/metal web joist with plywood sheathing. But after some number crunching by the architect and developer, they opted to use open-web steel joist with metal roof decking. Centered in the roof is a clerestory to provide light below.

The second floor was framed with a series of wide flange beams framing into wide flange girders with a composite floor diaphragm. The configuration of the building was such that the upper floor plan was square in nature and the lower floor more rectangular, in that a portion extended out beyond. This provide a location for mechanical units and the same sort of framing was extended to that area. It allowed to surface to be concrete as well, providing some damping below.

On the first floor plan, they had a great hall, but the wall from the second floor rest about in the center of the hall. The architect and owner did not want a column in the center of the hall, so we designed a plate girder to span the length of the hall, nearly 64 feet. The flange width needed to be 10 inches maximum 2 1/2 inches thick. The depth was kept at 60 inches with a 1/2 inch thick web, to avoid interference with the window system. At one point, we suggested a truss fabricated of HSS sections, but it was too difficult to coordinate windows around web openings.

The lateral system was a series of moment frames with two braced frames. In the end, it turned out to be all moment frames because of openings and such required by the architect/owner. They were designed as special moment frames in accordance to AISC standards and utilized the "dog bone" style connection.

Initially I started the design using RAM Structural System. I had never used this program so it was a learning experience for me. I did not have enough time to really assuage the troubles I was having with designing the moment frames within this program. After discussing it with Lance, I opted to use RAM Structural System to design only the composite gravity loads and then did the moment frames in RISA 3D. This worked well in the end.

The building turned out to be a real nice addition to the community. I had stopped by one Sunday when they were having a wood carving fair. I engaged one of the men there about the place and told him I was the structural engineer on the project. He then informed me, the only real complaint was that the janitorial room was 3/4's smaller than over at the other building.