Truarchs: 2013

Integrating resilient design principles

Flooding from Superstorm Sandy

The growing risk of major flooding in the Northeast is compelling many coastal and riverside communities to give serious consideration to flood-mitigation practices.

A report issued in June 2013 by the New York City Panel on Climate Change, Climate Risk Information 2013, projected a middle-range rise in sea level from 4 to 8 inches within the next few years and from 11 to 24 inches in 30 years. Baseline air temperatures are expected to rise 4 to 5.5 degrees and precipitation increasing 5 to 10% during this time period.

With studies such as this providing increasing evidence, facility professionals are recognizing that buildings need to be designed, from footprint configuration through utilities, to resist the impact of flooding and assure rapid recommissioning.

An effective strategy

Resilient design is an emerging and changing area of specialization that requires your design team to be thoroughly knowledgeable about the field and committed to keeping up with standards that are being written and frequently re-written. The team must show it has the technical skills and give examples of how it’s applied these skills in real-world situations. Its staff must show it understands the work and has the resourcefulness and flexibility to find solutions in challenging situations.

A wall collapsed from the force of rushing water

Trudeau’s professionals are trained in such resilient design strategies, having also completed rebuilding work after Hurricane Irene. In addition, we have received training at the Harvard Graduate School of Design in Climate Adapted Design covering buildings, neighborhoods, regions, infrastructure and finance. Our goal is for our projects to include resilient design principles with the least impact to the project schedule and budget.

An effective resilient design strategy takes into account the natural processes of the water cycle, will acknowledge that flooding is result of changes in land use as well as increase in precipitation, and recognize what happens when a landscape is altered and an area’s water balance is disrupted. Understanding these principles, an effective design will take steps to reduce the direct impact of water and wind on a structure by dissipating its energy. It will develop plans for the safety of building’s users, designing a means of evacuation and maintaining power.

Withstanding future storms

Trudeau’s professionals review available damage reports, raw flood data from government agencies and other related information. We study the conditions of tidal flood waters impacting the specific elevations of buildings, determining which will be most impacted by wave velocity and which will be subject to scouring effects of retreating flood waters.

Plans for installing flood vents

We then give recommendations on modifications that could be made to improve the resiliency of your existing site and resiliency of any long-term construction projects. “Pinch-points” between buildings can be minimized to slow water velocity and decrease the risks of site scouring, drag on building surfaces and sinkholes. These services will allow your campus to come back in service faster, providing services to the local community.

Trudeau’s team of professionals has designed plans to help buildings withstand future severe weather events. In Upstate New York, for example, Trudeau designed relief vents in the foundation of a community residence building to help balance hydrostatic pressures during a flood and to relocate mechanical and electrical equipment from the basement to the first and second floors. Downstate, we designed a plan to help a large institutional campus be quickly reoccupied after a major storm event, relocating all critical functions above flood areas.

The right design team

Analyzing flood map data

It's crucial that you hire a design team for your site that has the experience to bring forward-thinking, practical analysis to your project and assure budget-conscious solutions to ensure your campus experiences minimal impacts and rapid recommissioning at future storm events. That’s Trudeau Architects.

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Binghamton University’s East Campus Housing

Planned by Trudeau and Stantec, sprawling complex includes nine buildings

Binghamton University students in the East Campus Housing complex are now living in state-of-the-art suites – a result of the planning and vision of Trudeau Architects.

“With competition for students growing each year, the quality of student housing has become a major factor for students and parents when evaluating colleges,” said Bart Trudeau, principal of the firm. “Parents want their children to be safe at college, and the students want the comforts of home.”

The largest student housing project in New York state included eight new dormitory buildings containing 3,083 beds on the campus’ east end and a 65,000-square-foot Collegiate Center to provide kitchen and dining areas, offices, and facilities for student programs. The last phase of construction was completed for fall 2013 occupancy.

A master plan

In 2002, university officials called on the Trudeau team to prepare a capital plan for their 2 million square feet of student housing. The plan called for the campus to modernize its Dickinson and Newing dormitories.

Although the buildings were for the most part structurally sound, they were showing signs of aging and provided few modern conveniences. Corridors had low ceilings with old-fashioned fluorescent lighting, making them dark and tunnel-like. The laundry areas – which can be gathering places if they’re clean and modern – were unappealing.

During extensive study between 2003 and 2005, the Trudeau team determined that the old buildings would be too expensive to renovate, due to their poor energy performance and the difficulty of upgrading the mechanical and electrical systems. They added that, although modernizing the buildings could help the university in the short-term, new construction would better address its long-term plans and meet its need to accommodate growth.

Involving all stakeholders

Working with Burt Hill Architects from Philadelphia (now part of Stantec), Trudeau completed the master plan over the next two years and was selected as a team to carry out the plan through design and construction.

The team worked with the university to form focus groups and committees to collect input on the design, including students, faculty, alumni and numerous staff groups that operate the campus facilities. They were especially careful about being sensitive to student community traditions.

They developed an individualized plan for the dormitories that encourages social interaction by placing lounges on each floor while providing privacy by housing students in suites. These suites also helped to reduce custodial staffing services because of their efficient layout. Floors were also designed to have smart study rooms.

The new residence halls were designed with higher floor-to-floor dimensions and long structural spans. This allows the buildings to be used in the future for other purposes.

The buildings were designed to integrate into the natural surroundings and take advantage of local vistas. They were designed for Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design (LEED) Gold and Silver certification and most buildings have received certification.

A new environment

Construction was done in four phases starting in March 2008 and coordinated to minimize disruption to the students and without decreasing the net number of beds. The first housing unit opened in 2009, the next three dormitory buildings and Collegiate Center were under construction at the same time and were completed in the summer of 2011. This new configuration of this part of the campus opened up room to build the Collegiate Center.

The $376 million project increased the capacity of the student housing in these two communities by more than 20% overall, and gave it some of the best student housing in the nation.

“These new residence buildings provide a bright, airy, spacious, social, and amenity-rich living environment,” Trudeau said. “They have suites large common areas, study rooms, and bathroom facilities with modern conveniences. These housing units will certainly help to attract students to Binghamton University.”

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Video: The Binghamton University East Campus Housing Project

Truarchs

Monday, December 2, 2013

Resilient design