Client: United States Corps of Engineers

 

Shuxian (Susanne) Wassenius, the owner of Spyder Engineers, was the Lead Structural Engineer who provided structural engineering design services for the Emergency Services Center (ESC) while she was employed at WBCM.  The ESC is located in the Fort Detrick military base in Frederick, Maryland. The 42,000 square foot ESC project is a two- story L-shaped Administration Building adjacent to an Apparatus Bay, which is a pre-engineered building.  The Administration Building and the Apparatus Bay are connected architecturally but designed as two separate buildings structurally.   This facility provides a fire station, police/law enforcement, and administrative support space.

 

The foundations of the two structurally separated buildings are spread footings on concrete piers.  Compaction grouting of the underground voids was performed prior to the installation of foundation system at the entire site.  Due to the varying rock elevations, the spread footings were supported on top of rock on half of the site, the other half of the spread foundations were supported on a ground improvement system.  This foundation system provides an alternative solution to drilled piers, which brought cost savings to the overall project.  

 

The Administration Building consists of slab on grade on the first floor.  The second floor system consists of steel joists with a concrete slab on top of formed deck supported by steel beams and columns.  The roof framing consists of open web steel joists and metal deck, with steel beams and columns below. The lateral forces of the building are resisted by a masonry shear wall system.  The shear walls are located at various locations of the building.

 

The Apparatus Bay is a pre-engineered building.  The lateral system is a combination of rigid frames and portal frames with tie rods in the spread foundation system. 

 

This project meets the Anti-Terrorism Force Protection (ATFP) requirements and is registered with USGBC for LEED Silver Certification.