American University, East Campus Development
Project Location
Washington, D.C.
Project Type
– Education
Services
– New Construction
The East Campus added three new residential halls and a new state-of-the art academic building.
The Project
The East Campus development at American University expanded and enhanced housing and amenities for students and staff on the 8-acre site that was previously a 900 space surface parking lot. The new campus includes three residence halls that house approximately 590 students, the Innovation and Technology Building that includes high-tech laboratories, classrooms and administrative offices, and two below-grade parking levels that extends below the buildings. The new campus added approximately 380,000 GSF of space for the university.
Structural Features
The new residential halls included two 5-story buildings and one 6-story building. The structural framing for the three halls is composite concrete on long-span metal deck supported on light gauge metal stud walls. CMU shearwalls typically located around stair and elevator shafts were used to support the building laterally. Additionally, the exterior walls were constructed with precast panels, which required special structural detailing.
The Innovation and Technology Building is a 2-story steel framed structure with composite concrete on metal deck supported by composite steel beams and steel columns. The lateral system for the academic building is steel braced frames. Special attention was paid to limit vibration at floors supporting sensitive laboratory equipment, which included designing isolated slabs at these areas.
The two below-grade parking levels were cast-in-place concrete and extended below all four buildings. The foundations for all buildings were originally designed to be supported on auger-cast piles but were redesigned to be supported on conventional spread and strip footings on rammed-aggregate improved soils to reduce cost, after additional geotechnical information became available.
