Clark Nexsen Takes Home National ACEC Engineering Award for Davis Barracks at West Point
Left to right: Richard Clark, Tom Dalton, LouAnn Fornataro, Bob Burkholder, Lee Hopson, Peter Allen, LTG Todd T. Semonite, P.E., Chief of Engineers, Commanding General, USACE, Waleed Zoabi, John Worstell, Chase Beshore, and Chris Born.
Clark Nexsen received a 2018 Honor Award for Engineering Excellence from the American Council of Engineering Companies for our work on the Davis Barracks at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. This is a national award bestowed by ACEC and reflects, among other criteria, the unique or innovative application of engineering techniques and future value to the engineering industry.
The Benjamin O. Davis Jr. Barracks is a six-story, 287,000 square foot building that is reflective of its historic location while featuring state-of-the-art engineering. Sited between two roads on a steep hillside in West Point’s Central Post, the military gothic-style building was made possible through blasting and drilling to remove more than 60 vertical feet of rock over 132 feet of grade change.
Complex structural, mechanical, electrical, plumbing, and fire protection engineering systems meet goals for durability, aesthetics, and sustainability. The $183 million project features a glass-enclosed central lightwell, which was preserved in design through an innovative fire protection solution combining horizontal exits with specialty sprinkler heads to meet life safety codes. Each mechanical, electrical, plumbing, and fire protection system is integrated, metered, and monitored. Radiant floor heating and cooling is a first at West Point and may inform future applications in the Northeast. The building and mechanical systems are also designed to accommodate a future central utility plant to provide heating for additional barracks.
Clark Nexsen is the Architectural and Engineering (A/E) Designer of Record (DOR) for the project, which involved design development, construction documents, and construction phase services for architecture, landscape architecture, interior design, civil/site and structural engineering, and MEPF engineering.
The ACEC Engineering Excellence Awards recognize engineering firms for projects that demonstrate an exceptional degree of innovation, complexity, achievement, and value. For a project to qualify for national award consideration, it must first receive the highest ACEC award at the state level; Davis Barracks received a Grand Award for Engineering Excellence from ACEC Virginia, in addition to a Gold Award from ACEC New York. National awards were presented at the Engineering Excellence Awards Gala on April 17, 2018, during the ACEC National Convention and Legislative Summit in Washington D.C.
About ACEC
The American Council of Engineering Companies represents thousands of firms as the voice of the engineering industry in Washington, D.C. and throughout the nation. The 100-year-old organization is a federation of 52 state and regional councils representing more than 600,000 engineers, architects, land surveyors and other specialists. Its primary mission is to strengthen the business environment for member firms through government advocacy, political action, and business education.