Baldridge & Associates Structural Engineering

#ThrowbackThursday This Bachelor Enlisted Quarters was a design-build collaboration consisting of a concrete, three-story facility measuring approximately 99,500 SF. The building is H-shaped and includes a covered passage between the new structure and an existing BEQ. Our expertise in high seismic design and the DoD’s progressive collapse avoidance and blast criteria facilitated the contractor’s desire to use all precast concrete construction. Close interaction between the design team, contractor and precaster was required to efficiently detail the precast components and connections for the extreme design forces.

We're excited to announce that Edgar Gongora has been elevated to senior special inspector! Edgar has been a vital member of our testing and inspection department and has been instrumental in its growth and success. As an ICC and ACI-certified professional, he has performed special inspection, materials testing, and contractor QA for over 22.6 million square feet of construction. When Edgar isn't doing inspections, you can find him on a pickleball court. Join us in congratulating Edgar on this well-deserved promotion!

#ThrowbackThursday In 2003 we entered the Best Structural Engineering Firm to Work For awards program for the first time and placed 4th. We've participated every year since and are honored and humbled to have been ranked for the last 14 years, and in the top five since 2020. This recognition is a testament to our organization's culture, employee morale, and work-hard-play-hard mantra that has allowed us to attract the best engineers and helps us to continuously improve our practices.

#ThrowbackThursday Opened to the public on Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day, December 7, 2010, this facility replaced the original visitor center built in 1980. On over 17 acres, the new facility is arranged in a “campus style” layout that integrates the buildings within liberal green spaces. The site plan takes advantage of the mild Hawaiian weather and trade winds to maximize visitor comfort and energy efficiency. Visitors flow through a combination of conditioned and unconditioned interior spaces and exterior spaces that maximize views of Pearl Harbor and the Memorial. Differential settlement of the original building caused a considerable amount of concern. Extensive geotechnical and structural studies were conducted, providing the National Park Service with the information necessary to conclude that replacing the visitor center was far more cost effective than continuing to repair and maintain the existing buildings. Consequently, the new structure design gave careful consideration to the poor soil conditions along with the other aggressive environmental concerns of constructing a building adjacent to a salt water harbor. One area of the original facility that was not re-leveled in the past and was still in excellent condition are the theaters adjacent to the dock. For several reasons, the existing theaters were the only element of the original construction that was to remain. A creative solution was developed that allowed the existing theater to be underpinned with driven precast piles.

#ThrowbackThursday Completed in 2009, this eight-story, 650,000 SF competitively-won design-build garage at Honolulu's airport includes over 1,700 stalls and is connected to the existing interisland terminal garage at the 7th and 8th floors by a two-level, 150-foot structural steel bridge designed to accommodate traffic and moving walkways for pedestrians. To create a competitive advantage, the team evaluated several building configurations and structural schemes and developed a parking layout that included a double-threaded helix ramp design allowing circulation of two levels in one revolution constructed primarily with precast concrete. The winning configuration provided 500 more stalls than required by the RFP along with a cost-effective and attractive structure. The design-build team was also able to eliminate driven piles, which were used for surrounding buildings, with a much more efficient combination of spread and mat foundations.

The Arthur in Boise is completed! Special thanks to White Oak Realty Partners, SCB, and Power Construction. It was great working with you and we look forward to future collaborations.

Happy #Engineersweek! Engineers Week is dedicated to ensuring a diverse and well-educated future engineering workforce by increasing understanding of and interest in engineering and technology careers. Happy Engineers Week to all engineers, especially to our team of structural engineers at BASE! 

#ThrowbackThursday Completed in 2015, Guam Regional Medical City provides much-needed healthcare on the island of Guam. Guam is subjected to some of nature’s most destructive forces, including damaging earthquakes, major typhoons and a corrosive tropical environment. It's also extremely remote and locally available labor, materials and construction techniques were thoroughly considered in final selection of the structural systems. Various systems for the primary structural framing were investigated including cast-in-place concrete, structural steel and precast concrete. Although not nearly as prevalent as cast-in-place concrete and structural steel for hospital construction, precast concrete was ultimately selected to address the unique construction challenges of building this project on a remote island. Read more about the project here: https://lnkd.in/gCEgNvcS

#ThrowbackThursday Today we're going way back to 1996. This 40,000 SF flagship CompUSA store was located on Ala Moana Boulevard where The Collection stands today. An initial geotechnical evaluation found poor soils beneath the site and suggested using an expensive deep pile foundation system, but it made the project economically unfeasible. A creative alternate of raising the building pad combined with a structural mat foundation brought the foundation costs down in line with the available budget. In 2000, Hawaiian Cement recognized CompUSA with a Concrete Achievement Award in the New Low-Rise Building category. 

#ThrowbackThursday This design-build six-story, 166,000 SF bachelor enlisted quarters proceeded on a fast-track basis with foundation and superstructure design completed within only three months. The structural system consists of a two-way cast-in-place concrete frame supported on concrete columns with perimeter masonry walls providing lateral resistance. Exterior columns were pushed in far enough from the perimeter to meet Department of Defense progressive collapse avoidance criteria. This allows the columns to not be impacted by a blast event. The slabs were designed to cantilever from these columns in the event of a partial loss of the exterior masonry walls. The masonry walls were designed to be constructed after the concrete frame was finished and were attached to the slab edge with specially designed steel angle clips. Read more about the project here: https://lnkd.in/gQCdNK98