2007 ACEC OKLAHOMA

ENGINEERING EXCELLENCE AWARDS

 

 

Wallace Engineering Received Oklahoma’s Highest Engineering Honor for Oklahoma City University Music Center

 

BWR Corporation, Guy Engineering Services, and Garver Engineers

 Receive Honor Awards for Projects

in Oklahoma City, Tulsa, Grove, and Lincoln County

 

Wallace Engineering Structural Consultants, Inc. of Tulsa received the state’s highest engineering design honor, “The Grand Conceptor” award for their design of Oklahoma City University’s Wanda L. Bass Music Center.  The award is given annually by the American Council of Engineering Companies of Oklahoma (ACEC OKLAHOMA), the state trade association for professional engineering, architectural/engineering, and land surveying firms.

 

Additionally, four “Honor Awards”  were presented: 

 

                BWR Corporation, Oklahoma City, for the Sixth Street and Interstate 235 Gateway Entrance in Oklahoma City;

                Guy Engineering Services, Tulsa, for the Elm Creek 6th Street Drainage Project; and, 

                Garver Engineers, Tulsa for two projects – the 18th Street and Shundi Road Improvement in Grove, OK, and

                                State Highway 18 realignment and bridge replacements over the Deep Fork of the Canadian River in

                                Lincoln County.

 

Wallace Engineering provided the structural design of the Wanda L. Bass Music Center, a three-story, 113,000 square foot facility. The project houses 60 practice rooms, 38 new teaching studios, seven high-tech music labs, six ensemble rehearsal rooms, and a black-box theater, all wrapped around a soaring, 75 foot tall atrium featuring Gothic-inspired exposed steel frames. The Bass School of Music fits tightly within OCU's urban campus, abutting the Kirkpatrick Fine Arts Center, a 75-year-old building that houses the school's auditoriums.

 

The architectural and structural designs of the Bass Center were developed around the concept of creating bright, open, acoustically-tuned public spaces along with multiple, isolated, acoustically-sensitive practice and performance rooms. Acoustic issues required multiple isolation breaks in the structure, dividing the building into seven structurally, and in most cases acoustically isolated, independent areas.

 

The steel atrium arches for the Bass Center are Gothic-inspired frames reaching 70 feet above the ground floor. The perimeter walls of the atrium are primarily glass, and the use of braced frames was not possible. Lateral bracing for the atrium was achieved by incorporating the steel tube framing for the curtainwall and masonry columns into the steel arches to create moment-resisting frames.

 

The Bass center presented several unique structural challenges. Acoustic isolation requirements mandated that the building structurally act as seven separate structures. Acoustic requirements also drove the use of a cast-in-place concrete structure for the rehearsal halls, practice rooms, music labs and black-box theater. Long linear skylights and atriums along the rehearsal hall spine complicated the framing.

 

In addition to the acoustic separations, the building footprint is divided into two halves:  one that runs along the side of the Kirkpatrick Center and one that houses the rehearsal/practice wing. The portion along the Kirkpatrick Center had to match the floor-to-floor heights of the original building to allow access points from existing corridors. These floor heights did not match those needed for the rehearsal/practice wing. The two halves are joined by a large, naturally-lighted atrium, constructed using steel frames and steel floor framing. Steel framing was chosen for this area to accommodate the multiple floor elevation changes, feature stair and elevators.

 

The Wanda L. Bass Music Center is a great success, not just architecturally and structurally, but for Oklahoma City University as well. The Bass Center allowed the University to expand its enrollment capabilities for the music program, which was already recognized as one of the best in the nation.

 

Mark Parker, dean of the OCU Music School, put it this way: “The Bass Music Center is an unprecedented creative collaboration between musicians and acousticians, architects and network designers, craftsmen and visionaries. This synergy has created a place inspired by a dream to build the world’s finest facility for teaching music. The Bass Center is an inspiration built to inspire. It is a finely crafted instrument in its own right.”

 

BWR Corporation’s design of the Sixth Street and Interstate 235 Gateway Entrance welcomes users into the heart of Oklahoma City’s downtown area.  Dues to the tremendous success of recent redevelopment projects and growth in the Bricktown entertainment district, the City realized the need to improve access to the urban core fro the north.

 

The project included improvements to Walnut Avenue and a 5-legged intersection and entrance at 6th Street/Harrison/ Walnut Avenue.  Additionally, funding provided for enhances landscape and beautification, including the relocation of 168 memorial crepe myrtles at the 6th Street Intersection.

 

The project was completed in two phases in order to allow for portions of the project to proceed while plan revisions were made to incorporate the 6th St. enhancements. 

 

 

Guy Engineering Services, Inc. was the lead consultant on the design team and responsible for the coordination Elm Creek 6th Street Drainage Project.

 

First and foremost, the project charge was to design a storm water detention facility.  The existing park site chosen for this facility dictated that several restrictions should be adhered to during this phase.  In addition, the owner of the facility (the Tulsa Parks Department) dictated the design effort was to retain the park uses.  Traditional design of the normal hard features of a detention pond were significantly modified to achieve the aesthetic sense require for the park.

 

Working collaboratively with citizen groups like the 6th Street Task Force and Central Park seniors, city planners, landscape architects, and engineers developed designs to satisfy both the functional needs of the Master Drainage Plan and the need to retain and enhance the most attractive features of the neighborhood park.

 

The project provides 58 acre-feet of storage and includes a lake fed by a recirculating stream and ADA-accessible walking trails.  The layout and alignment of the wall and stream prevented disruption of some mature trees, and the new natural looking stream is completely manmade with rock-lined edges, riffles and pools providing aeration for the lake.  The construction method achieved the required storage needs and provided a canyon-type atmosphere.  The outlet structure, resembling a traditional fishing dock, maintains normal water surface elevation with a sharp-crested weir hidden under the cantilevered dock.

 

 

Garver Engineers originally contracted with the City of Grove to design the widening of 13th Street between Main and Shundi.  However, widening 13th Street was limited by adjacent residential property which further raised concern about the traffic volume along this residential section of roadway.  A look at traffic patterns in the area indicated that a new route to connect the northern part of the city, Highway 10 to commercial development, and Highway 59 to the south, would be in the best interest of the community.  An extension of 18th Street between Sumac Road and Shundi provided a solution to alleviate traffic from the residential area and presented an opportunity for development near a growing part of Grove.

 

Looking into the future, the City and Garver determined a four-lane road would be the ultimate need for 18th Street.  With this ultimate design in mind, the project was designed with right-of-way for the future four lanes, building two-lanes with a 10-foot-wide asphalt bike path paralleling the roadway for this 1.1 mile project.  Improvements consisted of widening Shundi to a three-lane roadway, allowing for turning traffic into adjacent properties along Shundi including a recently construction post office, the City ballfields and park, and businesses.

 

 

Garver Engineers designed the challenging and time-constrained State Highway 18 realignment and bridge replacements over the Deep Fork of the Canadian River in Lincoln County for the Oklahoma Department of Transportation (ODOT).

 

Garver had just over 6 months to completely design 1.3 miles of state highway to be realigned along with two new bridge structures.  In addition to being a challenge from a hydraulic standpoint, the new alignment was significantly offset from the existing alignment and had wetland issues.

 

The existing alignment, three bridges, and an abandoned railroad overpass were removed while one bridge was constructed over the Deep Fork and one over its overflow channel.  The main bridge, which replaced the structure crossing the main channel, was replaced with a triple, 125-foot span, precise beam bridge with a 40-foot width on drilled piers.  The overflow bridge, which replaced the two relief structures, is a 5-foot by 90-foot span, precast beam bridge with a 40-foor width on drilled piers.

 

Garver stayed on schedule with ODOT through intensive planning, coordination, and communication with all parties involved, and met an extremely compressed schedule on this project.

 

 

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