Engineering Inc. - May/June 2005 - 32

GRAND AWARDS AC E C 2 0 0 5 E N G I N E E R I N G E X C E L L E N C E AWA R
D S W I N N E R S Russia Wharf Historic Office Building Support During
Tunneling, Boston Mueser Rutledge Consulting Engineers New York, N.Y. A
400-foot-long section of the new South Boston Silver Line Transitway Tun-
nel needed to be constructed beneath a complex of three 100-year-old
historic and occupied commercial buildings at Russia Wharf. Soil
conditions were not ideal, and the tunnel alignment was 10 feet below the
pile caps for one of the three buildings. To minimize the chance for
structural damage and to allow the buildings to remain occupied during
construction, the project team com- bined a new Austrian tunneling process
called sequential excavation with permanent and temporary underpinning of
the structures. The process included intentionally freezing the subsurface
layers to temporarily support the weight of the buildings and prevent
groundwater from filtering into the construction area until the tunnel's
permanent structural support system was in place. This approach, used in
the U.S. for the first time, successfully pro- tected the buildings until
tunnel construction was completed in May of 2004. Seattle Central Library
Magnusson Klemencic Associates Seattle The design goals for Seattle's new
main library were demanding: no columns in the corners, no vertical
columns as few columns as possible, in fact. The 12-story,
412-square-foot, all-glass build- ing was conceived to apparently float
without support. The proj- ect team designed two separate yet integrated
systems to accommo- date the building's cantilevered platforms, which
resist wind and earthquake loads, including a diamond-shaped steel grid
that inter- connects the platform trusses and supports the glass curtain
wall. Other features include a nine-story atrium through the building's
center, a meeting level with curving, tomato-red walls and a chil- dren's
area with sloping columns. Inside and out, the new Seattle Central Library
fulfills its goal as the library of the future. M.I.T. Ray and Maria Stata
Center Site Design, Cambridge, Mass. Judith Nitsch Engineering, Inc.
Boston Architect Frank Gehry's vision for the M.I.T. Ray and Maria Stata
Center for Computer, Information and Intelligence Sciences included an
abstracted New England landscape. When it developed the center's
innovative stormwater management system, the project team saw an
opportunity to create a design that was both visually interesting and
utilized a sustainable design solution. Using the simulated landscaping
elements, the system collects and retains rainwater in a series of
underground collection cells. The water is filtered through created
wetlands and crushed stone, then disinfec- ted and recycled either for
waste flushing inside the center or release into the city's main drainage
system. The result enhances the aesthetics of the MIT campus center and
serves as an ongoing dis- play of how new technology applications and
sustainable design opportunities can blend. 3 2 ENGINEERING INC. M a y l
June 2005
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