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Oklahoma. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Engineering
Excellence Awards
2016
Guernsey Honored as
Engineering Excellence
Award "Grand Conceptor"
For Boeing Office &
Electronics Laboratory
Facility, Oklahoma City
In February 2015 The Boeing Company (Boeing)
contracted Guernsey to masterplan a campus and
design the first phase of the project—a 316,000-
square-foot, two-story office and laboratory facility
adjacent to Tinker Air Force Base. This expansion
was programmed to bring over 800 high paying
engineering and technical jobs to the greater
Oklahoma City area. The project kicked off on April
1, 2015 with a critical move-in date of May 1, 2016.
The project consisted of consolidating 30
laboratories and functions from multiple Boeing
locations nationwide. The challenge that Guernsey
had from the beginning was meeting the
requirements for laboratories with varying functions
with a single design solution for mechanical,
electrical and plumbing infrastructure.
The building HVAC systems and electrical systems
were chosen to be as flexible and powerful as
possible to provide a reasonable amount of
redundancy as well as service for future phases of
growth. Guernsey designed a chilled water system
utilizing a variable primary system to meet HVAC
needs. The tightly coordinated electrical system was
designed to use multiple utility feeds rather than on-
site generation. Guernsey had to utilize some of the
largest available distribution equipment to meet
Boeing’s power requirements. Through the team’s
up-front planning and design, the facility’s complex
electrical is both extremely safe and highly reliable.
Physical secrecy and security was a primary driver of
many decisions and construction of systems. Each
space had to be analyzed based on classification
requirements and adjacencies. The facility was also
hardened to withstand up to an EF4 tornado in
order to protect its employees and high-value
aeronautical laboratory equipment.
Guernsey was able to meet and exceed the client’s
expectations and provide innovative solutions for
each issue that was presented during design and
construction of the facility. Due to the robust nature
of the systems that Guernsey provided in design,
Boeing expects the building to last and serve them
well for now and into the future.
HONOR AWARDS
CEC - OSU Intramural Sports
Fields
Campus expansion had created the need to both
replace an existing intramural field and provide
additional facilities to allow for future growth.
The new North Intramural Fields will help the
Oklahoma State University Department of Wellness
serve more than 3,500 weekly participants in its
Intramural Sports program. The site features three,
full sized football/soccer fields situated side by side.
The fields are common in elevation and lighting is
positioned only around the perimeter. This allows
for play in any direction and for the fields to be
oriented for softball use as well.
Other features include a playing surface of
NorthBridge™ hybrid Bermuda grass, developed by
OSU to perform on heavily utilized sports fields such
as these, and the fields are the first in Oklahoma to
employ LED sports lighting. This will help OSU to
achieve savings in both energy and maintenance
costs.
In addition to the fields, a maintenance building and
restroom structure, which also will serve as a high
wind area of refuge, have been constructed on site.
Utilities and stormwater detention for these facilities
was designed in a manner to allow for the
placement of additional developments in the future.
CEC provided conceptual scoping and site studies
for this project as well as overall project
management; survey, civil site design; mechanical,
electrical, and plumbing design; and structural
design.
Team members included McFarland Architects and
Planning Design Group. The $3.5 million project
stands ready to help the OSU Department of
Wellness achieve its commitment to creating a
healthy campus culture for students, faculty, and
staff.
Olsson Associates -
Emergency Repair of May
Avenue Bridge over
Northwest Expressway
On May 19, 2016 an over-height vehicle travelling
westbound on Northwest Expressway in Oklahoma
City impacted the exterior beam in Span 3 of the
May Avenue Bridge, causing partial collapse of that
span. The bridge and road below were immediately
closed to traffic in all directions until the damaged
section and debris could be removed and an
evaluation of the remaining structure could be
completed.
Representatives from Olsson Associates were on site
within an hour after the incident and performed an
assessment of the bridge to ensure safety of the
driving public. Olsson Associates assisted the City in
advising Cimarron Construction on the demolition of
the collapsed bridge to best preserve the remaining
structure. Removal of the damaged portions began
on May 20 and was completed May 21. During the
afternoon of May 21, Olsson Associates performed a
thorough visual inspection of the bridge structure
for any damages from the collision and found the
southbound lanes to be safe to open to traffic.
Due to the location of the project and the
importance of both Northwest Expressway and May
Avenue to the surrounding community, the
demolition and repair efforts needed to be done
quickly and efficiently, with as little impact to the
local community as was possible. The City requested
that the damaged bridge span be replaced and look
similar to the original structure. With this in mind,
and in an effort to keep repair time and construction
costs down, Olsson directed Cimarron Construction
to salvage and re-use the original ornamental railing.
In addition to allowing limited traffic on the bridge
during reconstruction, a temporary crossover was
constructed to detour westbound traffic on
Northwest Expressway on the eastbound lanes.
Because of this, local traffic was only slightly
impeded during repairs.
Repair construction plans were completed and
submitted to the City within a week of the initial
damage, after which the project was awarded to the
low-bidder, Cimarron Construction Company. Final
inspection was performed on July 22, 2016, and both
May Avenue and Northwest Expressway returned to
normal operation.
Olsson Associates - Western
Road Widening
The City of Stillwater is home to Oklahoma State
University, which has been growing over the past
several years. This growth has expanded from
campus, spurring development within the city.
There has been increased residential development,
university expansion and a new commercial airline
service on the west side of the Oklahoma State
University campus. Western Road is located on the
west side of the Oklahoma State Campus and as a 2
lane road with minimal shoulders, it is not keeping
up with the times. The City of Stillwater hired Olsson
Associates to develop the plans to improve the
roadway to keep up with the development in the
area; however, it was not just the City of Stillwater
that was involved. The project included multiple
agencies: Oklahoma State University, the Oklahoma
Department of Transportation, the Natural Resource
Conservation Service (NRCS) and the Payne County
Conservancy District.
The project included the realignment and widening
of Western Road to align with Farm Road to create a
new single signalized intersection with Hall of Fame.
The majority of the roadway is located within the
drainage basin of a NRCS flood control structure
which resulted in several challenges. The
improvements to the roadway included a bridge, a
new signal, improved sight distance and safety.
One of the challenges of the project was to not
impact the capacity or the function of the dam. 3D
modeling was done to ensure the dam would not be
impacted. Additionally, the main communication
line that provided internet access to the university
went through the site, resulting in several meetings
and intentional design to accommodate the location
of that vital utility.
Overall, the success of this project is due to the
collaboration and cooperation of the multiple
agencies that were involved. Because everyone
worked together for a common goal, this project will
be a success to the many individuals that played a
part.
Terracon - Geophysical
Survey Limits Karst
Formation
Impact Study in Major &
Woodward Counties
The US-412 corridor in Major and Woodward
Counties is a major truck route through northern
Oklahoma carrying freight from the Port of Catoosa,
near Tulsa, westward to Denver. US-412 carries a
traffic volume in excess of 2,350 vehicles per day
(VPD) with 35 percent being heavy trucks. Until
recent improvements along the corridor, much of
US-412 consisted of a narrow two-lane highway with
minimal or no shoulders, inadequate safety slopes
and poor site distance.
These sections of US-412 were the most challenging
parts of the corridor to design and construct due to
the rolling hills and regional geology which is
intermixed with three prominent gypsum beds
containing numerous solution cavities and caves
that serve as nesting areas for bats and favorite
exploration sites for local spelunker clubs.
ODOT tasked Terracon Consultants, along with
internal staff, Garver and MacArthur Associated
Consultants to design functional improvements
necessary to the highway within a limited budget.
The design work began with geophysical survey
mapping potential voids and cave features and
several geotechnical borings.
The geophysics engineers and geotechnical
engineers worked closely with the roadway design
engineers and ODOT staff as they considered several
alignment alternatives and typical sections. Final
designs included various options to minimize the
impact of the new vertical alignment on the karst
topography and assure the prolonged sustainability
of the highway.
The geophysical surveys and related geotechnical
borings successfully captured the unique anomalies
of the karst topography. While considerable effort
was expended during the design phase collecting
the geophysical data, doing so allowed construction
to proceed smoothly, with minimal interruptions.