Tipping Mar has received an Award of Merit in the category of sustainable design for the retrofit of the Carquinez Senior Apartments, our entry to SEAONC's 2012 Excellence in Structural Engineering Awards. The Carquinez, a project of BRIDGE Housing, is a 1926 historic landmark designed by James Plachek and located in Richmond, CA. For an extremely low budget of $1 million, Tipping Mar created a ground-floor retrofit that affords the occupants shelter-in-place in the event of a large earthquake.

This is the second time the Carquinez has been recognized for excellence in structural engineering; the project was an award winner in the retrofit/rehabilitation category. And this is Tipping Mar's 25th excellence in engineering award!

Central Concrete and BASF Construction Chemicals invite you to a free luncheon seminar: Innovative Concrete Technologies for the Construction of Sustainable Institutional Structures. As part of the seminar, David Mar, along with Webcor's Phil Williams, Central Concrete's Mike Donovan, and Climate Earth's Chris Erickson will take an in-depth look at the SF Public Utilities Commission HQ, describing how a design switch from steel to a resilient post-tensioned concrete structure yielded multiple advantages – trimming the construction schedule and securing $12 million in savings, while reducing the project’s footprint by 7.4 million pounds in CO2 emissions from embodied carbon. You will also learn how a valuable tool, the Carbon Calculator, emerged during the project’s development. Developed by Climate Earth, the Carbon Calculator output is available to Central’s customers. Space is limited, so register soon. Registration closes on April 27, 2012.

On February 29, 2012, Marin Country Day School, Step 2, received the Green Building Wood Design Award from WoodWorks West as part of the 2012 Western Wood Design Awards. The project, whose design team was led by EHDD Architects, won for the "use of wood to provide a contemporary feel that blends in with the school’s natural surroundings." The 29,000 sf Learning Resource Center is the first net-zero-energy classroom building in North America.

This year, WoodWorks West awarded seven Wood Design Awards to architects and engineers who demonstrate innovation and excellence in the design of wood buildings.

The February 20, 2012 issue of Engineering News Record trumpets Tipping Mar's cutting edge, high-performance, and cost-effective innovation in "Tensioning Eases Stress in 13-Story Sustainability Showcase," the feature article on our work on the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission Headquarters. Read it here.

On September 2, UC Berkeley celebrated the LEED Silver certification of Durant Hall, one of the campus's oldest and most beautiful buildings, recently renovated under the design leadership of Mark Cavagnero Associates Architects. Durant Hall was designed by architect John Galen Howard and built in 1911 to house the Boalt Law School and, later, the East Asian Library. Tipping Mar was the seismic consultant on the renovation project, which was completed in 2009.

Other Tipping Mar projects on the UC Berkeley campus include the Campbell Hall seismic replacement building, the additions and renovations to the Haas School of Business, Hearst Greek Theatre seismic and safety corrections, and seismic studies and peer reviews for Anna Head Housing and Lewis, Mulford, and Eshelman Halls.

A leader in sustainability-oriented design, Tipping Mar has nineteen LEED projects to date, including nine Platinum and eight Gold, and one certified Living Building.

The National Council of Structural Engineering Associations has just notified us that our entry, the Carquinez Senior Apartments, has been named one of three winners of the 2011 Excellence in Structural Engineering Awards in the forensic/renovation/retrofit/rehabilitation category. The awards ceremony will take place in Oklahoma City on October 22, when the Outstanding Projects will be announced.

In this ground-floor-only retrofit to this concrete 36,000 gsf historic building, Tipping Mar applied our innovative Relative-Strength Method, providing life-safety performance at the DBE hazard (475-year return period) and collapse prevention at the MCE hazard (2,475-year return period) for under $1,000,000 and with minimal disruption to the building's occupants.

Tipping Mar developed the Relative-Strength Method in our work for the FEMA-commissioned ATC 71-1: Guidelines for the Seismic Retrofit of Weak-Story Wood-Framed Buildings.

The June issue of Architectural Record features an article (Green at Its Core) about the San Francisco Public Utitlities Commission Headquarters going up at 525 Golden Gate Avenue. The article is a thorough discussion of how Tipping Mar's innovative and robust seismic frame is a key part of the project's sustainable strategy and its bid for LEED Platinum.