Congratulations to the University of Washington Interdisciplinary Engineering Building team on being awarded The Engineering News-Record (ENR)’s Award of Merit for Higher Education and Research!
Left to Right: Ken Carlson (VECA Electric), Isaac Opedal (Auburn Mechanical), David Feaster (KieranTimberlake), Jacob McCann (KPFF), Kabri Lehrman-Schmid (Hensel Phelps), Josh Storey (Hensel Phelps), Ryan Piper (Hensel Phelps), Shane Ruegamer (University of Washington), Jennifer Reynolds (University of Washington)
The Engineering News Record (ENR) Northwest Regional Committee awarded the University of Washington (UW) Interdisciplinary Engineering Building (IEB) project with the Award of Merit for Higher Education and Research.
The design-build project team accepted the Award of Merit at ENR West’s Awards Ceremony, which recognizes outstanding projects that demonstrate excellence, innovation and quality.
Our team’s hard work and dedication was demonstrated as this complicated interdisciplinary facility, located in the heart of campus, came to life. This award is a testament to our commitment to excellence and the strong relationships we built with UW and our partners along the way. I’m incredibly proud of what we achieved together.”
– RYAN PIPER, OPERATIONS MANAGER | HENSEL PHELPS
The $81 million, LEED Gold-certified, progressive design-build UW IEB project provides a student-focused, interdisciplinary center, enabling the College of Engineering to promote project-based learning and research, collaboration and innovation for undergraduate students. This project provides 72,000 SF of hands-on learning and flexible instructional space to support over 950 new students across 10 academic departments.
The IEB serves as the welcome center to the University of Washington’s engineering department and provide a landing place for first- and second-year students. The design fosters a silo-free learning environment, encouraging students from diverse engineering disciplines to collaborate and prepare them for industry and entrepreneurial careers. The new building relieves pressure on the college’s departmental buildings and supports integration into degree programs, while helping students develop real-world engineering and leadership skills. The IEB will house programming for leadership, student clubs, classrooms, diversity and access, as well as a dedicated space for industry-sponsored capstone projects that aim to strengthen connections between the University of Washington and industry partners.
Photo: Mikki Piper© | The team utilized one of the primary project constraints, the site’s slope, and leveraged it to achieve $ 700,000 in cost savings on the project. The team developed massing options that utilized the 60-foot elevation delta across the site to their advantage, starting with building shape and structural components and moving to access/egress and ADA requirements. The site’s target value design centered on maximizing the opportunities of the sloped site in relation to building accessibility and the functional interaction between interior and exterior spaces. This resulted in tiered building levels into the hill and created three levels of accessibility for the campus. This solution resulted in significantly less excavation and export, which lowered cost, increased safety and eliminated traffic congestion through the main thoroughfare on campus.
