Sean Howard

Structural Option
Executive Tower
1399 New York Ave, NW Washington, DC

This is a student-generated Capstone Project e-Portfolio (CPEP) produced in conjunction with the AE Senior Thesis e-Studio.

Welcome to Sean's AE Senior Thesis e-Portfolio

Building Statistics

General Building Statistics

  • Building Name: The Executive Tower
  • Location and site: 1399 New York Ave N.W.
  • Building Occupant Name: office space tenants
  • Occupancy or Function Types:
         Class A office building stories 1-11
         3 floor below grade parking garage
  • Size:
         office-132,268 sqft
         Garage- 39,810 sqft
  • Number of Stories: 11 above grade, 14 total
  • Primary Project team:
         Owner: The Kaempfer Company
         Website: www.kaempfer.com
         Architect: Hellmuth, Obata + Kassabaum, Inc. (HOK)
         Website: www.hok.com
         MEP Engineers: GHT ltd
         Website: www.ghtltd.com
         Structural Engineers: Tadger, Cohen, Edelson Assoc.
         Website: www.tadjerco.com
         Geotechnical engineers: Schnabel Engineering
         Website: www.schnabel-eng.com
  • Dates of Construction (start-finish):
         Start: *
         Planned: *
         Actual: December 2000
         Cost: *

  • * still trying to make contact with GC

    Building System Information

    Architecture

    The Executive Tower is a Class A office building in the heart of Washington, DC located two blocks northeast of the White House. This eleven story office building houses numerous companies such as Bloomberg Financial, Merrill Lynch, and AIG. The executive towers offers both open and office laid-out floors. The three level parking to accessible on the south face on New York Ave. The lobby rests on the southwest corner at New York and 14th St. and is inviting to the eyes with its high ceilings, and wood, marble and granite veneers line the walls and floor. To reach the elevator lobby, one must walk thru the rotunda, a cylindrical wood veneer room in the center of the buildings footprint. The first floor also houses the fitness center and retail with loading bay accessed on H St. The 2nd through 11th floors is all tenant space. The penthouse and main roof contains the main mechanical room, cooling towers, emergency generators, building engineer’s office and a covered outdoor view area that over looks the White House, Washington Monument and the Capitol dome.


    Building Envelope

    Executive Tower uses a curtain wall system consisting of glass with aluminum framing and precast concrete stretching horizontally around the whole building at each floor level with few precast concrete lines in the vertical direction. The first and second floors on face New York Ave, H St and most of 14th St are show cased with granite paneling at floor level and over exterior columns. The east side borders and existing church so has all precast concrete panels at level 6 and is cmu block wall at level 5 and below. The west face on the south end features the building’s trademark curved façade which links the skewed street of New York Ave and H St. This is further pronounced by keeping this shape separate from the rest of the building by not having a granite paneling at the 1st and 2nd level and by extending above the 11th floor to make the outdoor viewing area. The roof of the building stands out by having precast capitals at level 10 and the roof of level 11 and is topped with a larger precast capital along the curved roof of the viewing area.

    Construction

    Still trying to make contact with general contractor


    Zoning and Historical

    Commercial Business District C-4
    Historical significance, District of Columbia height limitations – maximum building height 130 ft


    Major National Codes

    1996 District of Columbia Zoning Regulations
    1992 District of Columbia Building Code
    1990 BOCA National Building, Mechanical, and Plumbing Codes
    1990 NFPA 70 National Electric Code


    Structural

    Executive towers rests on a minimum 42” thick MAT foundation which consists of #10@12” e.w. top and #7@12” e.w. bottom typical reinforcement. Built up spread footings of 13’x13’x1’ are typical for all the interior columns.

    The buildings engineers used an 8” two way concrete flat slab systems with #4@ 12” reinforcement bars and a thickened concrete bearing plate of 8’x10’x8” at column locations. The typical interior columns are 20x20 with 8#10 reinforcement bars. The slab is primarily by concrete columns except for the 8” cmu block cores at the elevators and stairwells and from level 5 and below on the west side adjacent to church is also an 8” cmu block load bearing wall.


    Mechanical

    The mechanical rooms are located in the penthouse of the executive tower, which contains cooling towers that feed the 13 VAV water cooled A/C units located at on each floor including one for the fitness center, lobby and penthouse.

    The buildings entire central air system is monitored by the building’s engineer in the penthouse. Through this system he can change cooling and heating temperatures, flow rates and change exchange ratios.


    Lighting and Electrical

    480/277V feed
    Consulting owner and MEP

    Fire Protection

    Executive Towers uses 2 hour rating in most area such load bearing walls and columns. For non load bearing separations a 1 hour rating is used. Through out the tenant spaces, lobby, and fitness room wet sprinkler system is used with a standpipe in the main stairwell located in the center of the building.


    Plumbing

    A Duplex booster pump with hydrocumulator tank located in the P1 parking level pumps the domestic water throughout the entire building and to two electric water heaters located in the penthouse mechanical room.


    Telecommunications

    Consulting owner


    Transportation

    Executive Tower consists of a four elevator core in the center of the building which can be used to access the three below grade parking levels and to the 11th floor. The elevator 1 located in the top left corner of the core is used to access the penthouse and main roof. There is a single stairwell adjacent to the elevator core.

    Parking can be reach from New York Ave on the buildings south side and a load bay is located on the north off of H St.


    Special Systems

    All tenants must display their passes when enter executive towers and a scan + pin code is required to reach the penthouse and roof.

     

     

    Parts 1 and 2 of the Building Statistics assignment must be formated to fit onto this page.

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    This Page was last updated on January 23, 2006 , By Sean and is hosted by the AE Department ©2005