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Myriad Botanical Gardens Reopens with Day of Celebration

OKLAHOMA CITY (September, 2011)

A daylong celebration marked the reopening of the renovated Myriad Botanical Gardens. Events included concerts, a farmer’s market and pumpkin patch, free admission to the Crystal Bridge, and a butterfly release. The 28,000 square foot gardens are located in the heart of downtown Oklahoma City.

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Frankfurt Short Bruza (FSB), an Oklahoma City-based architecture and engineering firm, served as lead architect and engineer for the building projects in association with Gensler during the yearlong renovations.

“As a longtime Oklahoma City firm, it’s been an honor to lead the renovations of a true landmark like the Myriad Gardens,” said Allen Brown, principal at FSB. “The dramatic transformation of the gardens creates more inviting open space with a restaurant, state of the art water features, and sculptures all complemented by the natural surrounding beauty. Already visitors are enjoying the gardens, and we expect many more for generations to come.”

The new design provides a community gathering space for arts, entertainment, culture and botanical education. The Great Lawn and Performance Pavilion now holds up to 2,500 visitors and will host events like concerts, outdoor movie screenings and seasonal festivals. The new Water Stage provides an incredible outdoor stage with theatre seating for 500.

As part of the renovation, FSB marked their 65th anniversary with a $50,000 donation for the acquisition and placement of 65 trees in the Myriad Gardens. Each oak and cypress tree marks a year in business in Oklahoma City for FSB.

“FSB sees this donation as a commitment to future generations of Oklahomans,” said Brown. “The trees are a symbol of strength, sustainability and endurance. This donation is near and dear to our hearts at FSB, as we have been dedicated to the community for more than six decades.”

The trees now line the Great Lawn and Performance Pavilion area of the gardens. A permanent plaque was dedicated to commemorate the donation.

Emergency relocation — Smart, functional design on a tight timeline

FSB stepped up to help the Oklahoma Department of Tourism expedite its office relocation into the Department of Commerce building when the agency was given five days to vacate its current offices. The FSB team worked with Tourism and Commerce staff to successfully plan and execute the move in just one weekend.

The Situation: Relocation time-frame moved up two months on short notice
It was a Friday evening in late August 2015 when Deby Snodgrass got the call triggering what would be a weekend of “controlled chaos” for the Oklahoma Departments of Tourism and Commerce, both agencies for which she is the executive director.

Since June, the Department of Tourism had been working with FSB on relocating from its offices at the First National Center. The four state agencies with offices in First National planned to leave by the end of the 2015, and Tourism was on track to move all 100 of its employees by November.

That plan was thrown off course on Friday, August 21, when Governor Mary Fallin’s chief of staff called Secretary Snodgrass with news that her department would need to make an emergency move — utilities would be shut off at First National in five days.

“Fortunately for me, I knew exactly who to call for help,” Snodgrass said. “Secretary of Finance Preston Doerflinger, Secretary of Transportation Gary Ridley and FSB. Together with our outstanding teams at Commerce and Tourism, we launched into action first thing on Saturday morning.”

The Solution: A relocation schedule compressed from weeks to days
Tourism had already narrowed down its options to a shortlist of locations, one of which was within the Department of Commerce’s building. Snodgrass believed the proximity would promote collaboration between the two departments. With a compressed timeline, the decision was quickly made and a charrette held Saturday morning to plan the move of two large state agencies — Commerce had to consolidate to the second floor at the same time that Tourism was moving onto the first.

“We fit into one day what would normally take place over several weeks,” said Fred Schmidt, FSB’s principal on the project. “Employees had to be able to show up at their offices, pack up their stuff, find their new desk on a map and get to work. Tourism oversees 60 state parks, a weekly television show, a bimonthly magazine and much more. They couldn’t miss a beat.”

Snodgrass said she welcomed relocation as an opportunity to modernize and streamline the Tourism offices. FSB had already taken a thorough inventory of all furniture and equipment, including the Discover Oklahoma studio, that would be moving to the new space. FSB interior designer Lauren Nash had been studying how the seven divisions within Tourism interacted with each other to determine how best to create the new layout.

“For the office to function well we needed to understand their operations,” said Nash. “This is what we’ve been trained to do as designers and planners, and it becomes a mental checklist of everything we know we need to ask the users. Then the adjacencies begin to appear so that they have a very functional and flowing office.”

From the beginning of the project, the goal had been to design a work-space that would set employees up for success, simplify their workflows and allow for future growth and flexibility. Even with a short timeline, long-term functionality was paramount. Four months later FSB is putting the finishing touches on the workspace, adding conference rooms and adjusting thermostats and lighting to give employees more control over their environment. But the bulk of the relocation happened during just a few days in August.

The Result: Modern, streamlined offices that enhance efficiency and collaboration
“FSB exceeded my expectations in every way,” Snodgrass said. “They worked all weekend and at night. They were willing to do whatever it took to reconfigure the space, ensure fire codes were observed and meet the time deadlines. The short time fuse definitely presented a unique set of challenges – but I am always ready to tackle the impossible. Where there’s a will, there’s a way.”

Now Snodgrass said she is watching the two agencies, Tourism and Commerce, become a blended family.

“Every day people are discovering new ways to work together to reach our common objective of creating and delivering high-impact solutions that lead to prosperous lives for all Oklahomans,” Snodgrass said. “The work-spaces are still in the process of being reconfigured – it’s an ongoing process that will be completed in early spring 2016. For now, we are crowded but happy thanks to the helping hands of our friends and partners who made the impossible possible.”

A unique and artistic use of what would otherwise be dead space, the conference room ceiling became an unusual canvas for a mural.

Interested in learning more about how FSB can help expedite your next project, contact Laure Majors at [email protected] or call her direct at 405.840.2931.

Learn more about the Oklahoma Departments of Commerce: http://okcommerce.gov/ and Tourism & Recreation: https://otrd.ok.gov/OkTourism/

P750 Helicopter Maintenance Hangar

Frankfurt Short Bruza Associates was an Outstanding Award Winner for the P750 Helicopter Maintenance Hangar project in the 2014 NCSEA Annual Excellence in Structural Engineering awards program (Category – New Buildings $30M to $100M).

The Helicopter Maintenance Hangar was constructed at Naval Air Station North Island, the birthplace of naval aviation. Architects and structural engineers collaborated on a facility design worthy of this location, worked to control its visual scale and soften its industrial nature.

structuralmagazine_p750-hangar_05-15 Land-side points of entry utilized cast-in-place concrete structures in naval aviation themed elements to create organizational, material and spatial hierarchy. Set behind these elements, the massing of the two-story administrative portion of this facility undulated to create a softer rhythm across its 631-foot front face and created opportunities for operable windows, daylight and outdoor break areas. A curved roof profile sculpted the hangar bay’s boxy volume and provided a visual transition from the lower administrative space behind. A second curved roof feature was added over each squadron’s space and was rolled up over the hangar roof to resemble stacked waves, which further broke up the massive volume. Translucent insulated panels in the vertical zone of the trusses provide significant natural daylighting, and at night give the appearance the roof is much thinner and is hovering over the lower walls. Vertical lifting hangar doors provided a clean appearance, and columns were minimized to maintain the effect of one continuous opening across the front of the facility.

Although the elevated design aesthetic immediately catches one’s eye, the structural challenges and solutions were a major component to this project’s success. Not only did the structure have to support and compliment the architectural features, it had to meet several environmental and physical demands such as a corrosive marine environment, high seismic considerations and a site which was determined to be liquefiable.

Historically, the project site was below sea level and had been reclaimed by placing fill soils to get above tide levels. A layer of liquefiable soils was identified and a Site Class of ‘F’ was assigned. Forty foot deep stone columns were constructed across the site to reinforce and densify granular soils. This provided an increase in bearing capacity, decrease in settlement and mitigation of the potential for liquefaction. After the construction of nearly one-thousand stone columns, this deep densification soil improvement program improved the Site Class to ‘D’.

Structural engineers utilized buckling restrained brace technology to reduce the design seismic loads imposed on the structure, provide superior ductile and energy dissipative behavior and simplify the entire structure in general. Due to a higher behavior factor and increased fundamental period, smaller structural members could be utilized, connections were simpler and the required seismic bracing demands were reduced on all building systems. As an added benefit, fewer expansion joints were required, thus further simplifying the structure and freeing up more functional space for the facility’s occupants.

While the aforementioned technologies were highly effective solutions, the ingenuity in the design of the hangar trusses had the largest overall impact to aesthetics, building function and economy. The top chords of the truss were segmented, and purlin end connections had individual vertical adjustment to create the varying roof curves. Truss symmetry was utilized throughout, with special consideration given to the location of vertical members to control shadows visible through the translucent insulated panels. The truss bottom chords supported bridge cranes, fall arrest systems and extensive catwalks. These catwalks and platforms permitted building HVAC equipment to move into the hangar space in order to free up additional floor space for each Squadron.

structuralmagazine_p750-hangar_05-15-2 The 112,000 square foot helicopter maintenance facility measures 631 feet wide by 151 feet deep and is over 65 feet tall. It utilized 1,487 tons of structural steel including connections, 5359 cubic yards of concrete and achieved LEED® Gold certification. Most importantly, this new facility improves day-to-day readiness and mission execution through its arrangement and state-of-the-art features, but the Navy also proudly stated the facility would, “… inspire and enhance Sailors’ morale, both on-board (the Air Station) as well as those across the bay.”

About the author ⁄ Gene O. Brown, P.E.,

Gene O. Brown, P.E., is a Principal at Frankfurt Short Bruza Associates (FSB) and Director of Federal Programs.

Crime Lab/University Partnership is Mutually Beneficial

By Darren McRoy

Why did the forensic science student cross the road? To get to his internship at the top-notch professional facility on the other side.

The University of Central Oklahoma’s (UCO) Forensic Science Institute is partnering with the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation (OSBI) to share their respective new buildings — which, conveniently, are located directly across from each other on opposite sides of 2nd Street in Edmond, Oklahoma. The OSBI’s new Forensic Science Center opened in March 2008, and its partner building, UCO’s Forensic Science Institute, will be completed in November of this year.

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Representatives said the affiliation will produce a mutual benefit for each organization. “We have a synergy between the two institutes,” said Dr. Dwight Adams, director of the Forensic Science Institute. “We provide continuing education to the forensic science professionals, [and] their facility now provides readymade access for our students to do internships, right across the street, to work side by side with professionals.”

UCO students can spend entire semesters at the Forensic Science Center, either training in a specific forensic discipline or rotating between units for a wide perspective. OSBI pros will also help teach classes at the university. This semester’s core forensic science analysis course at UCO —designed around impression evidence — will be partially instructed by the head of OSBI’s Latent Fingerprint Section, Jim Stokes.

In return, UCO’s Institute will provide free continuing training and re-training for OSBI professionals. And the university staff and students can help in another way as well, said Charles Curtis, assistant director of OSBI. “We might identify some areas in which research needs to be conducted — but we need to spend our time on casework,” Curtis said. “Where we might not have the time and manpower, they would. We can work with them on research projects.

“[Students] get the experience, and we get the benefit of a new forensic arson database.”

The partnership is the result of a vision shared by UCO president Roger Webb, OSBI director DeWade Langley, and Edmond city officials: dual, shared facilities for training and enabling the best forensics specialists and criminologists in the state. Each facility was designed by famed Oklahoma City architecture-engineering firm Frankfurt Short Bruza.

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Also included in the new FSI building will be the AT&T Digital Forensics Laboratory, a task force of law enforcement officials working with criminal digital evidence. “The FSI will house the digital-forensics laboratory; we will purchase all of their equipment and provide all of their training in order for the laboratory to provide digital-forensics training for all law enforcement in the state of Oklahoma,” said Dr. Adams.

“[The partnership] allows us and the police departments and anyone interested in doing computer forensics to all be in the same location,” added Curtis. “And there may be benefits we don’t even know about yet… We just really need to think outside the box as to what the possibilities are for this partnership.”

Construction Administration & Why It Makes a Difference in Your Budget

As his FSB colleagues finalize their designs on a project, Wes Brannon’s work is just beginning. In his role as a contract construction administrator, Brannon is the voice of the architects and wes-_-white-background engineers at FSB, once drawings are handed over to the construction team to translate them from the page into the real world.

“You can put a window in many different ways,” Brannon said. “Clients want someone there who can have some judgment on whether the work performed meets the intent of the design. We keep the contractor from taking shortcuts or overlooking steps to make certain the Owner gets the quality product they are paying for.”

Not every project needs enhanced construction administration. The more complex a project is, the more clients benefit from the presence of an experienced construction administrator on the job. Brannon has more than 30 years of experience. He is one of three full-time construction administrators at FSB, each with backgrounds in either architecture or engineering. FSB construction administrators solve a lot of problems in the field and know when to call and which expert or discipline to involve when something doesn’t look right.

“Buildings are getting smarter and smarter, and that makes the construction process more complex,” Brannon said. “Even homeowners are controlling their thermostats from an iPhone. Multiply that by a thousand for a complex building project like a hospital, where life-saving equipment needs to work perfectly every time.”

Construction administration is a service some Owners choose to add on to their design projects, and the firm works with its clients to figure out the right level of involvement an administrator should have on the project, depending upon the complexity and nature of the building. The mistakes Brannon may prevent can save owners millions by pre-empting the need for expensive do-overs.

For example, on one worksite, he noticed a worker cutting windows to be fitted into place on the side of the building. They had been prefabricated and sealed in a factory, but because the wall had been constructed slightly off, the windows weren’t fitting. Had Brannon not been onsite, the compromised windows would have been placed, and vapor would soon have seeped between the sheets of glass and created a film inside the windows. No one would have known what had happened, and the Owner would have had to spend their money to replace them after the fact. The catch was worth about six figures to the Owner.

“When you are working on a $40 or $50 million project, one mistake on the worksite can be in excess of a million dollars,” Brannon said. “Construction administration is sound insurance for the client compared to a mistake similar to that.”

Not only is Brannon the voice of the architect on the work site – he’s also another set of eyes and ears for the client. Where many large companies once employed experts on their building maintenance staffs that would understand and oversee construction projects, they have scaled back. Many clients now rely more heavily upon construction administrators to advocate for the agreed-upon design. Brannon provides regular analysis to his clients about the progress of their projects and flags any concerns he might have from reviewing monthly pay applications, construction schedules and walking the site.

Brannon said he appreciates that at FSB, he is allowed to do his work the way he believes it should to be done — thoroughly and responsibly.

“I think that’s pretty rare,” Brannon said. “When a project goes smoothly, everyone wins.”

To learn more about how construction administration services can save you money on your next project, contact Laure Majors at [email protected] or call her direct at 405.840.2931.

Q & A on being an Owner’s Representative

Going to bat for our clients…

The role of owner’s representative is its own separate niche, in many ways independent of standard architecture and engineering services, and it’s one that’s extremely important. When we fulfill these duties for a client, they are placing an enormous amount of trust in our team, and we take that trust very seriously. Here in this brief Q and A, FSB Principal Fred Schmidt outlines what these professionals do and the unique ways in which they help our clients.

Q. Tell me about the owner’s representative role and what duties it comprises.
A. Essentially, when you take on the owner’s representative role you’ve become part of that owner’s in-house team. You become the adviser, and with that comes a long list of responsibilities. The number one reason we’re there is to provide quality assurance and to make sure the client is getting everything they’ve contracted for from both the design and construction teams. As the owner’s rep we are basically interpreters of what the contractor is doing. We provide quality oversight, and we help the owner forecast what’s coming up, especially if we anticipate any problems. We outline the pros and cons, giving the owner the information they need to make crucial decisions. By doing this, we can successfully keep most projects on schedule and within budget by avoiding expensive change orders, construction delays or conflicts between the contractor and the client.

Q. What specific tasks are involved in providing this quality control?
A. There is a lengthy list of services that the owner’s rep performs, which can vary from project to project. Some examples of these duties are: regular on-site inspection of the construction site; assistance with developing a master plan; facilitating meetings between the contractor, architect and client; ensuring compliance with all federal, state and local requirements; acquiring any needed permits; ensuring the contractor provides appropriate documentation and record-keeping; reviewing plans and specifications for their suitability to the project goals; assisting with acquiring and reviewing funding sources; reviewing contracts and handling change orders.

Q. When do companies typically need an owner’s representative?
A. The level to which owners may choose to engage depends upon two factors. The first is their ability to oversee professional services themselves, since many companies don’t have anyone in house with the necessary skill set. Others who have experience with many projects, such as higher education institutions, typically don’t need to hire someone, as they have staff who can handle what’s needed. There are exceptions to this, though. Sometimes government agencies or larger companies have so many projects going on at the same time that they need outside help to take care of them all, which is when they come to us.

Q. How has the role of owner’s representative changed in recent years?
A. The role has evolved over the last several decades, but again is primarily focused around quality assurance. This is also a growing service niche. The real change is that while traditionally this role has been filled by an architect, other professionals like project managers and construction administrators are increasingly assuming those tasks. However, it’s still more of a natural fit for architects because of our standard role in overseeing the entire design/construction process.

FSB seismic design specialists in Oklahoma apply world-class expertise locally

Although earthquakes in Oklahoma have historically been low on the list of threatening natural disasters, the state has experienced a major increase in seismic activity in recent years. This increase has caused many residents to begin questioning the effects of earthquakes on the state’s infrastructure, and led many property owners to scrutinize their buildings’ preparedness to survive a major seismic event.

“In Oklahoma, designers are used to building for tornadoes but less used to building for earthquakes,” FSB Director of Structural Engineering Ben Wallace said. Wallace earned his PhD at Stanford, where he was part of a joint United States-Japan research cooperative looking at seismic resistance in structures. “In a tornado, a building has to resist strong wind pressures and impact from debris. Earthquakes are very different — the building has to be able to move around and not collapse. Seismic forces are much less predictable than wind pressures. The ground just shakes as hard as it’s going to shake and the building has to ride that out.”

Wallace, along with colleague Tom Bush whose PhD dissertation work at the University of Texas centered around the seismic strengthening of buildings, have applied their knowledge to FSB’s projects in many parts of the world, including historically earthquake-prone regions. Most recently, for example, the pair was part of an FSB team designing three Navy aircraft hangars in the San Diego area, an area with historically high levels of seismic activity.

Locally, FSB’s seismic design knowledge was recently applied to the design of the Edmond Public Safety Center, completed in October 2015. Because of its emergency management function and jail holding cells, the center represents a category of buildings that must remain operational following an earthquake.

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The two structural engineers represent an uncommon concentration of expertise for a design and engineering firm in their home state, and with the increase in seismic activity in Oklahoma, local demand for their specialty is increasing.

“Everyone wants to know ‘Can my building take a magnitude 5 earthquake? A 6?’” Wallace said. “There are many factors people don’t see that go into helping the seismic performance of a building. In fact that’s one of the goals is to make sure people don’t see them. They are hidden but they are very important.”

Two of the most important factors are the materials used and the way these materials are connected, according to Wallace and Bush. In general, unreinforced masonry buildings, common in older commercial construction, are most susceptible to earthquakes. Steel or concrete frames are stronger. From examining the building plans of existing structures, the engineers can express an opinion on how fortified a building would likely be against a significant earthquake. The best time to structurally reinforce a building for earthquakes is during its initial construction, and the second-best time is during a major renovation.

Importantly, a lot of earthquake damage is not structural, but caused by large equipment like furnaces and water heaters tipping over, Bush said. For example, a water heater might tip, break a gas line and cause the building to catch fire, or a pipe could fall from the ceiling and hurt someone or cause damage. To protect a building and its occupants, mechanical and electrical engineers reinforce plumbing and heavy equipment using seismic bracing.

“Seismic design is total design,” Bush said. “It crosses disciplines and needs to be consistent from architectural work through to structural and electrical engineering. It’s all of us.”

At a multi-discipline firm such as FSB, architects integrate input from structural and mechanical engineers as they design rather than seeking an engineer’s sign-off after the fact. The collaborative process results in a more integrated, cost-effective final plan. FSB’s structural engineering department is involved in every architectural plan.

Building codes do require a certain level of seismic reinforcement on every job, no matter the region. These standards have only increased over the years as awareness of seismic activity grows.

“The big one hasn’t hit Oklahoma,” Bush said. “The day the San Francisco earthquake comes here will be a new day. I imagine we would see stricter codes and receive more attention from local clients, as we see constantly with tornado reinforcements. No matter what, we are committed to continue bringing the same expertise we apply on projects in California and Alaska to every project.”

For more information about earthquakes in Oklahoma, visit: https://earthquakes.ok.gov/

Balancing Sustainability, Clean Air, Healthy Learning Interiors & Structural Safety

How School Planning can Benefit When Advisory Boards, Research Universities and Government Funding Agencies Together Discuss Points-of-View

Balancing Sustainability, Clean Air, Healthy Learning Interiors and Structural Safety when Designing and Building Schools
• Determine impact on student performance.
• Determine how healthy school strategies affect one another.

Learning Objective 1
Learn the processes involved to create research relationships between government research funding agencies, research universities, investigators and planners familiar with the design and construction of schools.

Learning Objective 2
Learn the benefits that are available to school district officials and school boards who seek to make building design decisions for new schools or school renovations.

Learning Objective 3
Learn why parents, teachers, students and school district officials have ongoing discussions about healthy and highly performing schools and what they want them to be as a viable part of their communities

Learning Objective 4
Learn how to gain a stronger definition of the trade-off concerning sustainability and environmental quality for students.

State of the Grant
Building Features List
Building Features – Case Studies: Lighting, Acoustics, Thermal Comfort, Interior Design, Aesthetics, and School Campus
Community Advisory Board

PRESENTED AT CEFPI 2015 CONFERENCE BY: FSB Education Design Studio, University of Oklahoma / College of Architecture, Edmond Public Schools, RTA Architects

Fred Schmidt, FAIA, LEED AP, Frankfurt Short Bruza Associates, P.C
Christina J. Hoehn, M.ED, Assoc. AIA, RID, Edmond Public Schools
Doug Abernethy, AIA, RTA Architects
Lisa Holliday, Ph.D. PE, University of Oklahoma
Hepi Wachter, M.arch, Dipl.Ing, LEED AP, Green AP, CAPS, NCIDQ, University of Oklahoma

For additional information on the research program: http://okchs.csa.ou.edu

Anatomy of a Dome

This presentation is a Historical Timeline for the Oklahoma State Capitol building, the plans for and construction of the Dome, which was announced in 2000 by Governor Frank Keating. FSB joined Capitol Dome Builders, a joint venture of Manhattan Construction Company and Flintco Inc. to create a Design-Build Team that same year. Construction was scheduled for completion on Statehood Day, November 16, 2002.

Building Section of the Oklahoma State Capitol and the Interior Dome Design Concept.