A new 7-story health education facility that houses the Kentucky College of Optometry and UPike’s growing nursing program. This project features state-of-the-art classrooms, clinical education laboratories, basic science laboratories, and primary care operatories.
 

The building structure utilizes a structural steel frame with composite steel beams and wide flange columns. The lateral resisting system utilizes the concrete shear walls in conjunction with moment frames (connections of bolted end-plate connections designed by BK). The south façade steps inward necessitating the use of plate girders at the third level to support the floors above. The plate girders also cope up to 18” from the 33” maximum depth to accommodate a waterproofed double-slab system at an outdoor terrace. Interior floor slabs 
are recessed for topping slabs to be polished. The seventh-story is open without interior columns for use as an assembly space.
 

The structure is situated into a steep hillside with minimal clearance to the Record Memorial Building to the east and to Sycamore Street to the north. The excavation required an approximate 260 lf by 28 feet tall pile and lagging wall with tiebacks to support the street and allow for excavation to the bedrock shelf which was designed by BK to coordinate with the building foundations. From that level the bedrock was drilled, presplit and excavated to a strict tolerance so as to minimize subsequent backfill. To accommodate the site relief the structure is terraced into the hillside at the 5th story to incorporate a necessary soil excavation and retainage up to Sycamore Street into the building space for minimal additional cost. The building structure utilizes cast-in-place concrete walls supported by rock anchors up to the 5th story. The sixth story and outlying connector utilize concrete foundation walls braced by buttress walls. A one-story connector to the adjoining structure likewise uses a combination of cantilever and buttressed walls to resist 2-stories of grade differential.

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Awards
2017 Merit Award – New Construction, AIA Kentucky

2017 Merit Award, AIA St. Louis