Rhino

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Pennsylvania State University Pollock Commons Renovation

Owner

The Pennsylvania State University

Location

University Park, PA
United States

Project Information

13,000 SF
Extremely Compressed Construction Schedule
Rhino’s expertise netted approx. $200,000 in cost savings

Sector

The Pollock Residence complex is comprised of nine high-rise student residence buildings with pipe tunnels to Pollock Commons, a 3-story facility that provides dining facilities, lounge areas, and administrative space for the Residence complex. The extremely fast-track project encompassed various upgrades and modifications, and was conducted in four phases over the course of two years. Construction was restricted to 13 weeks during each summer when fewer students were in residence. Phase 1 encompassed renovation of the Football Team Cafeteria, on a further compressed schedule.

Rhino’s value engineering: The project MEP dictated that the existing water service was insufficient to supply the new sprinkler system, and that a new larger service was required. Our engineers were able to demonstrate that the existing service was indeed sufficient through design and calculations, thereby saving the University approximately $200,000 in trenching costs alone.

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Hunter Holmes McGuire VA Medical Center IDIQ

Owner

U.S. Department of
Veterans Affairs

Location

Richmond, VA
United States

Project Information

43,000 SF
Mulit-Year IDIQ Contract

Sector

Rhino FPE was engaged to provide engineering, design, and consulting services under a multi-year IDIQ contract to the Hunter Holmes McGuire VA Medical Center (VAMC). Task orders included construction of a new 2-story wing, relocation of occupants to the new space, and subsequent existing space renovations including Centralized Registration and Outpatient Lab areas. Another task order encompassed construction of a new Senior Management Building, a one-story, stand-alone facility for office use (10,000 sf). All work conducted in an occupied campus environment and required minimal disruption to patients and staff.

Rhino’s scope in all of these projects included design of standpipe and automatic sprinkler systems as well as extension of the existing hospital fire alarm system to protect the facilities. We also provided building code and life safety consulting to ensure that architectural designs met the VA Fire Protection Design Manual as well as applicable building code requirements.

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Fallswood Condominium

Owner

The Fallswood Condominium Complex

Location

Rockville, MD
United States

Project Information

375,000 SF / 200 units
Phased construction in occupied environment
Completed ahead of schedule

Sector

The overarching objective in this project was to quickly replace a non-functioning and antiquated fire alarm system to satisfy Montgomery County’s life safety mandate in this two-tower, 13-story residential condominium complex with three-level parking garage.

As Owner’s Representative, Rhino conducted a conditions and life cycle assessment of the antiquated fire alarm since spare parts were no longer available, provided life safety code consulting, devised and negotiated a phased approach within the County time frame mandate and Owner’s financial limitations/budget, vetted vendor proposals, provided construction project management as well as commissioning and witness testing. An challenge was coordinating / obtaining access to individual units for construction as well as minimizing disruption to residents and maintaining good communication among all parties (i.e., Owner, Property Manager, and condo owners/occupants).

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Veach-Baley Federal Building – Fire Alarm Replacement

Owner

U.S. General Services
Administration

Location

Asheville, NC
United States

Project Information

107,870 SF
Design / Build Project
cost savings of $1 million

Sector

Rhino PE provided design team management as well as fire alarm and safety engineering/design for the replacement of the fire alarm system in this 6-story fully operational office building constructed in 1929. The building is currently occupied by several U.S. government agencies.

The previous fire alarm no longer functioned, which necessitated a 24/7/365 manual fire watch. Rhino devised measures for a temporary firm alarm system that not only offered enhanced life safety to building occupants, but also provided GSA with a cost savings in excess of $1 million by quickly eliminating the need for fire watch manpower. Upon completion and acceptance of the temporary solution, we designed and implemented the new fire alarm system on a rolling, floor-by-floor basis to minimize disruption to tenants. An additional challenge was implementing the new fire alarm system without sacrifice to historic building features.

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Battle Building – UVA Children’s Hospital

Owner

University of Virginia

Location

Charlottesville, VA
United States

Project Information

182,261 SF
3 story Atrium
Multiple Hospital and Medical Building Usage

Sector

Rhino FPE served as Fire Protection Engineer of Record for the new Battle Building, The multiple features of this high-rise hospital /medical facility required several interrelated fire protection systems including atria smoke control, stair pressurization, smoke compartment design, fire alarm with voice communication capabilities, seismic design, and multiple types of fire suppression systems (dry-type, pre-action, window sprinkler protection, wet-type, standpipe, and secondary on-site fire pump and tank water supply.

A challenge in the project was the narrow and long shape of the atrium. Rhino developed a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model using Fire Dynamics Simulator (FDS) to validate the design for the atrium smoke control system that was developed with prescriptive correlations. The ceiling configuration required special design for the smoke exhaust outlets to prevent plug-holing.