DCI Engineers

For the past several years, the Puget Sound region has been absorbing a share of refugees from Angola, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Venezuela – three countries facing turmoil and creating unsafe spaces for their inhabitants. While individuals, often families, are unquestionably better off in the United States, their situation is far from secure upon arrival in the Seattle Area. Most are being shuttled to a couple of churches in South Sound, where they’re set up in tents on parking lots.

DCI’s Seattle and Everett office groups recently teamed up with the Low Income Housing Institute (LiHi) for a drive to collect clothing, furniture and other necessities for refugees. Business Development Manager Tom Woodcock and Executive Assistant Sharon Spillman rallied our teams to fill five large donation boxes and numerous garbage bags full of men’s, women’s and children’s clothing, shoes, microwaves, cooking utensils, lamps, TVs and hygiene products.

“We moved 119 asylum seekers into housing this past week, including 67 children,” noted LiHi Executive Director Sharon Lee. “We are working on helping 50 more people this week. Our staff is extremely dedicated, and we really appreciate DCI’s contribution in improving people’s lives!”

To learn more about LiHi’s efforts, visit https://www.lihihousing.org/

DCI Principal Danielle Jacobs will moderate the Bisnow Pacific Northwest Industrial & Logistics Summit panel, “Tenant-Centric Development and Design: Adapting to the Evolving Needs” on Wednesday, July 31, at the Embassy Suites Pioneer Square in Downtown Seattle.

The panel will feature developers, owners and designers as they explore balancing flexibility, functionality, technology and sustainability. The event starts at 8am and tickets are available here: https://www.bisnow.com/events/seattle/industrial/pacific-northwest-industrial-logistics-summit-8518

DCI’s Bozeman office celebrated the Montana summertime this week with their open house event, hosted at the AC Hotel by Marriott Bozeman Downtown - a local DCI project! The evening was a wonderful opportunity to connect with our clients and coworkers while enjoying some good food, drinks, and a classic Montana sunset. A big thank you to everyone who came - we hope you join us again for the next party!

Engineering takes innovative, analytical and problem-solving capabilities. To do this work, you’ve got to be determined, yet flexible; detail-oriented, yet big-pictured; and above all, wicked smart.

That is why we’re celebrating the women behind this historically male-dominated career path – the ones showing there’s room for everyone at the table to roll up their sleeves, sharpen their pencils and help make our built environment a reality.

For International Women in Engineering Day, Sunday, June 23, we celebrate them, us and all who will be; because ‘engineer’ translates to ‘doer’ – and we’ve got the ladies to prove that.

The project team behind LA’s largest homeless housing project gathered to cut the ceremonial ribbon this past Wednesday, June 19, signaling the opening of Weingart Towers – a 19-story, 278-unit structure in LA’s “skid row” neighborhood.

This is just one of two towers for the massive project, which features common areas, dog runs, a computer lab, gym and music/art rooms. DCI’s Manuel Aldaco Lopez, Associate Principal, and Salma Syed, Project Manager, were in attendance, along with several project team members and representatives from the Weingart Center Association.

“This is not just a building,” noted Weingart Center Association president and CEO, Kevin Murray to the LA Daily News. “This is about people, about giving people dignity and respect.”

https://www.dailynews.com/2024/06/19/las-latest-homeless-housing-project-at-nearly-600k-a-unit-opens-in-skid-row/

Last week, DCI’s marketing team took home a Reign Award for best Marketing Campaign from SMPS Seattle
(Society for Marketing Professional Services). The winning entry, the Puzzlemania Challenge, was an internal wellness activity that invited all of DCI’s 20+ offices to complete a puzzle.

With three different puzzle sizes custom designed with the words, “Unity, Community, Connection” (300-piece for smaller offices, 500- for our midsize locations and 1,000 pieces for our largest staffed offices), the Challenge encouraged group participation with a prize for the fastest completed puzzle in their respective categories.

It was a HUGE hit! And last week’s award was a testament to the group effort involved between DCI’s Marketing team and Wellness Committee – not only in bringing about this company-wide activity but to the collaborative spirit of the Challenge itself!



Photo Credit: Francis Zera

We’re halfway through the year, which means we can share that DCI has earned its 2024 compliance badge for the SE 2050 Commitment. If you haven’t been following the journey, we’re aiming to reduce embodied carbon in all our structures by the year 2050.

Sound impossible? We invite you to learn more and join us in our sustainability efforts for a brighter, more energy efficient future.

https://www.dci-engineers.com/markets/sustainable-design

DCI’s multi-story warehouse project in Chicago is making its rounds, and that includes the most recent edition of Modern Steel Construction magazine. Authors Roger Heeringa, DCI Principal in Charge of Sustainability, and Jessica Martinez, DCI Sustainability Specialist, help summarize how steel is playing a crucial role in the sustainable development of future warehouse designs.

https://lsc-pagepro.mydigitalpublication.com/publication/?m=7946&i=821470&p=36&ver=html5



Project Team: The Walsh Group, Ware Malcomb, Lyndon Steel Company, and Nucor Corporation

Modern Steel Construction June 2024 Page 36 Heavy Lifting BY ROGER HEERINGA, SE, PE, JESSICA MARTINEZ, PE, AND DENNIS PILARCZYK, PE Steel was the essential piece of an innovative two-story distribution center that’s reimagining the future of urban warehouses. BUILDING A DISTRIBUTION CENTER just two miles from a city center has obvious appea...

Affirmed Housing Group put together this video documenting the Grand Opening of their new affordable/supportive housing development Vitalia. Vitalia is a six-story, mixed-use residential building with 2,300-sf of commercial space on the first floor and five levels of apartments above. The building’s 79 apartment units will go towards housing Low-income and formerly homeless people and provide them with support services.

The project was put together by Affirmed Housing Group and Architect Van Meter William Pollack, LLP of San Francisco. DCI Engineers is proud to have contributed to such a transformative project that will doubtlessly serve the community it’s in for decades to come.

https://youtu.be/yKKJAhCt0bI

The Grand Opening of Vitalia Vitalia is a new affordable and supportive housing development in San Jose. Vitalia offers 79 apartment homes for low-income and formerly unhoused individual...

DCI’s Sustainability Specialist, Jessica Martinez joins a panel of industry experts to discuss the entire life cycle of a building, from ideation and design to construction-phase and building operation, at the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) Oregon Building Transformation Forum happening Thursday, May 16, at Glumac’s office in Portland, OR, 11am-3pm.

Registration is still available: https://web.cvent.com/event/696C2264-5846-45ED-A72B-91CF388C63A4/summary

Architectural Record recently featured Heartwood, an eight-story, residential building with 126 apartment units in Seattle’s Capitol Hill Neighborhood. The article highlights how Heartwood eases Seattle’s Missing Middle housing problem. Missing Middle housing is housing for people who earn too much to qualify for affordable housing programs but struggle nonetheless to find apartments within their price range.

Architectural Record also highlights Heartwood’s novel structural system. DCI designed the building’s frame using mass-timber, which is visible throughout its interior. The structure’s design met new requirements from the International Building Code for Type IV-C construction, making Heartwood the first Type IV-C building in the country.

The article goes on to tell the story of how architect atelierjones secured funding for the project after the site control of the project fell through. Thanks to Community Roots Housing, a local non-profit housing operator and owner of Heartwood, the project was completed.

You can read more of the Architectural Record’s article here: https://www.architecturalrecord.com/articles/16874-in-seattle-mass-timber-tackles-the-workforce-housing-crunch

Timberlab, Swinerton

In Seattle, Mass Timber Tackles the Workforce Housing Crunch An apartment building by atelierjones leverages new building code provisions to create a scalable and sustainable model for middle-income housing.

This Spring, we have several promotions to announce. These represent several roles and regions across DCI, and we couldn’t be more thrilled for their individual growth and journeys. Please join us in congratulating our engineering, BIM and corporate staff who earned these titles!
https://www.dci-engineers.com/news/dci-announces-spring-promotions

On Thursday, May 16, DCI’s Erik Pearson, Principal, will moderate, “PNW at a Glance: The Current State of the Critical Facility Market” at the firm’s Seattle headquarters, from 4-7pm. AJ Steinbrecher, Director of North America Land Acquisition, and Christy Swearingen, Principal at Swearingen Consulting, will shed light on the critical journey from construction to operations and delivering high-performance data center facilities.

The event is hosted by the CoreNet Global Washington State Chapter and registration is available here: https://resources.corenetglobal.org/Meetings/Meeting.aspx?ID=15309

In 2023, DCI Engineers collaborated with Weber Thompson and PCL Construction on a study to determine if a mass timber residential tower could financially compete with a similar size concrete tower. Our three firms tested different materials, framing approaches and lateral design to find out.

And now we’re excited to share the results with you: https://www.dci-engineers.com/news/tall-mass-timber-study-results-revealed

DCI Principal, Kyle Holman, PE, SE will be a co-presenter at The CCIM Institute Washington State Chapter luncheon on Wednesday, May 8, at the Seattle Yacht Club. Kyle will be joined by David McAlister of GeoScience and Russ Hazzard of MG2 for, “The Collaborative Journey of Architect, Contractors, and Engineers in Project Launches.” The trio will discuss navigating the challenges and triumphs for seamless project coordination.

Members and non-members are encouraged to attend: https://www.ccimconnect.com/ccimwashington/events1/event-description?CalendarEventKey=6fbf3e99-4a9f-4320-9f48-018c7095e0bc&CommunityKey=783e5fb2-c0bc-42c0-afe6-bec2fe6e566b&Home=%2fccimwashington%2fall%2fevents

DCI Engineers will be closing out AIA’s Build a Better Idaho - Innovative Construction Symposium with the Carbon Leadership Forum Yellowstone presentation, “Reducing Embodied Carbon in Concrete” this Friday, April 26, at noon MST. Associate Principal, Jeremy Ryan will be joined by Jason Grieser from Geofortis to provide audiences with a baseline on integrating more sustainable concrete solutions into their projects. Registration is still available at the link!

https://lp.constantcontactpages.com/ev/reg/8tpcbba/lp/b823e02f-8fab-4e99-9ce3-4c7fed3a9b94

Build a Better Idaho - Innovative Construction Symposium The American Institute of Architects Idaho Chapter (AIA Idaho) invites architects, industry partners and members of the public for a series of conversations on sustainable and innovative building solutions. Get ready to dive into a week of innovation and inspiration with AIA Idaho's inaugural Build....

Every Earth Day, we reflect on our progress toward a more sustainable future. Recently, we have updated our Embodied Carbon Action Plan (ECAP), a component of DCI’s involvement in the SE 2050 Commitment, and have been expanding internal and external resources to better serve our clients.

We welcome you to learn more by heading over to our website: https://www.dci-engineers.com/news/an-earth-day-update

Thank you to our guests, our co-hosts, sponsors and staff who joined us last week for the annual Mass Timber Dinner, which coincided with the International Mass Timber Conference, here in Portland. The reason this highly anticipated event is possible is because of the collective energy of the designers, builders and visionaries of this innovative and sustainable product.

This kind of passion necessitates a reason to gather—regardless of where we are and who our competitors are—to celebrate the work, and we’re truly humbled to get to do that with you!

Here’s to another successful year gathered around the table!

Co-hosts: Timberlab and Jensen Hughes
Sponsors: Carpentry Plus, Inc. and ZIP-O-LAMINATORS LLC

DCI’s Sustainability Intern, Nicholas Grant spent 12 weeks assisting our Sustainability team with several priorities that support our firm’s SE 2050 Commitment efforts. You can get his takeaways, alongside other Net Zero Emerging Leaders and their experiences, at the upcoming Energy Trust of Oregon webinar event, Thursday, April 4!

Registration is free and available at the link below: https://register.gotowebinar.com/register/4759868737741604953

According to the National Low Income Housing Coalition, the U.S. faces a shortage of 7 million affordable homes and rentals. And the project team behind Timberview VIII, an eight-story, affordable housing development, believes our industry can help change that number by introducing a sustainable and innovative material option – mass timber.

Next week, attendees of the International Mass Timber Conference in Portland will get a firsthand look at this milestone project; but you can check it out right now by clicking our feature short film, “The Good Project.”

And be sure to check out our last video where DCI Principal, Shirley Chalupa, walked us through the engineering decisions behind Timberview VIII, along with our project partners’ channels for their individual takes on this amazing project.

https://www.dci-engineers.com/blog/dci-project-featured-at-2024-mass-timber-conference-in-new-short-film

The Timberview VIII Project Team:
Owner - Curtis Rystadt
Structural Engineers - DCI Engineers
Architect - Access Architecture
General Contractor - Truebeck Construction
Mass Timber Installer - Carpentry Plus, Inc.
Mass Timber Supplier - Kalesnikoff



Video editing by DCI's Communications Manager, Erin Spaulding.

DCI Project Featured at 2024 Mass Timber Conference & in New Short Film - DCI Engineers DCI and our project partners behind Timberview VIII—an eight-story, affordable housing development in northeast Portland, OR—invite you to learn more about the relationship between mass timber and affordable housing in the following short film.

Melissa Sibley, DCI Associate Principal in our Houston office said it best: “The opening celebration of an affordable housing project is, in my opinion, one of the most rewarding moments at work. Interacting with the residents and hearing some of their stories makes all of the hours spent designing the structure, collaborating with other design professionals, visiting the site, and coordinating in the field all the more meaningful.”

In addition to the recent opening of Rasmus-Temenos, a 95-unit supportive housing project in Houston, DCI has had the privilege to see the completion and recent project starts of several affordable and supportive housing developments across the region: Loretta, a SMART Housing development in Austin offering 137 units at or below 60 percent of the median family income; Seabrook Square, a 204-unit affordable housing complex in Austin; the FC Burleson Community project and Parker Lane development, both in Austin; and Summit at Renaissance Park, which will provide 325 affordable workhouse units to the Houston area.

We look forward to celebrating many more groundbreakings and ribbon cuttings for these impactful projects in the future!

COMING SOON - Not only is Timberview VIII Portland’s tallest mass timber building, it’s also adding over 100 units of affordable housing to the area. At eight stories, Timberview capitalizes on Type IV-C mass timber construction; and in a couple weeks, attendees of the International Mass Timber Conference will get a firsthand look at this milestone project.

Not in Portland? We’ll be bringing Timberview to you!

Stay tuned for the premiere of, “The Good Project: How Portland’s Timberview is Leveraging Mass Timber for Affordable Housing.” COMING NEXT WEEK!

DCI Principal, Shirley Chalupa, PE, SE walks us through the engineering decisions behind Portland’s newest mass timber, affordable housing project – Timberview VIII!

Keep an eye out on our partner’s channels for their take on this amazing project.

Project Team:
• Owner: Curtis Rystadt
• Contractor: Truebeck Construction
• Architect: Access Architecture
• Structural Engineer: DCI Engineers
• Installer: Carpentry Plus, Inc.
• Supplier: Kalesnikoff

DCI Engineers & Timberview VIII Not only is Timberview VIII Portland’s tallest mass timber building, it’s also adding over 100 units of affordable housing to the area. At eight stories,…

As a recipient of The Net Zero Emerging Leaders Internship grant through the Energy Trust of Oregon, DCI brought on an intern this past January to assist in measuring our ongoing LCA project work. You can learn more about our Sustainability Intern, Nicholas Grant, in the link below and how he’s helping DCI further our efforts to promote lower impact structures and share data for our SE2050 efforts to advance the decarbonization of the built environment.

https://www.energytrust.org/commercial/new-buildings-path-to-net-zero/net-zero-grants/net-zero-emerging-leaders-internship-3/2024-net-zero-emerging-leaders/?utm_source=LinkedIn&utm_medium=Oclicks&utm_campaign=2024_ETO-NB_NZELI

Northlake Commons is Seattle’s first and only mass timber life science/lab-ready commercial office building. At four stories and 250,000-sf, this podium-style building features mass timber framing on its four upper levels and a three-story concrete parking garage and two-story warehouse below.

Northlake Commons is equipped with rain gardens and bioswales that store and clean stormwater before releasing it into Seattle’s Lake Union, which supports the Clean Lake Union initiative. We’re thankful to Hess Callahan Grey Group, Weber Thompson, and Swinerton Builders for including DCI as the Engineer of Record for this pioneering project right in our backyard. For more information on Clean Lake Union, visit https://cleanlakeunion.org/.

Thank you for joining our virtual tour of Mass Timber Firsts! We look forward to partnering with our teams on the many milestones yet to come!

Photography: Sozinho Imagery

Timberlab

Project One is a global first in Mass Plywood Panel construction. The four-story residential building’s structure is comprised of mass timber floor plates fabricated off site. The building’s plywood wall panels were also fabricated offsite with MEP holes and cutouts coordinated via a 3D building model and trucked to the site where they, along with the floor panels, were erected in 23 working days.
The firsts don’t stop there as Project One became the first building in the country to utilize MiTek CFS moment frames on all its shear components. The MiTek frames allow for more openings versus traditional wood sheathed shear walls. They also reduced total shear wall length by roughly 50% and reduced construction time by two months!

This innovative project was completed by Macy Architecture, Social Construct, Gurnet Point and wood supplier Freres Wood. We’re honored to have worked with such an innovative team on this revolutionary project.

Stay tuned for more projects in our Mass Timber Firsts series!

Heartwood is Seattle’s first tall mass timber work force housing project, and the city’s first Type IV-C project. The eight-story building has 114 apartment units across 61,000-sf of space and was part of a United States Department of Agriculture Wood Innovation grant. As Engineer of Record, DCI coordinated the acoustical considerations of the glulam post and beam frame system between the units, as well as how to facilitate a visual timber aesthetic while still hitting the client’s acoustical goal.

We are thankful to our project team members Swinerton, Timberlab, atelierjones and SkipStone for including DCI on this novel project.

Stay tuned for more projects in our Mass Timber Firsts series!

Photography by Lara Swimmer.

1 De Haro is the first multi-story mass timber building in California, the first Cross laminated timber building in San Francisco and the first CLT project in the U.S. with materials transported by rail.

Constructed of approximately 100,000-sf of heavy timber framing, 1 De Haro utilizes CLT, glulam beams and columns and timber concrete composite flooring throughout three levels of office space. The composite floor assembly allows for spans up to 25 feet – the longest single span cantilever floor plates in North America!

The project was developed by SKS Partners, Perkins&Will and Hathaway Dinwiddie Construction Company with DCI as the Engineer of Record for the revolutionary 1 De Haro.

Stay tuned for more projects in our Mass Timber Firsts series!

The First United Bank branches in Shawnee, OK and in Sherman and Fredericksburg, Texas are both states’ first mass timber buildings, as well as the first Southern Yellow Pine CLT projects in the U.S. All projects utilized a mass timber and steel framing system, which provides an open floor plan, natural lighting and exposed wood architectural elements.

Owner: First United Bank
Architect: Gensler

Stay tuned for more projects in our Mass Timber Firsts series!

When space is limited, the only place to go is up! DCI Engineers, The Walsh Group, Ware Malcomb and Lyndon Steel were tasked with designing and constructing a warehouse just two miles from a Midwest city center. While this location offered unmatched access to a large concentration of consumers and businesses, it also meant a smaller available footprint for the new warehouse.

DCI’s Roger Heeringa, PE, SE, LEED AP and Principal in Charge of Sustainability, noted, “There’s a lot of demand to build new industrial facilities and in urban sites in particular. To be able to go two stories or even three on warehouse structures will be something I think you’ll see more of in the future.”

Read on to learn how Nucor's Aeos™ ASTM A913 high-strength structural steel provided the strength-to-weight ratio needed to support this area’s first-of-its-kind, two-story warehouse. https://nucor.com/case-study-two-story-warehouse

📷: Photo courtesy of Walsh Group

Nucor | Reimagining the Future of Warehouses Cost effective and sustainably made, Aeos™ high-strength structural steel plays key role in development of an innovative distribution center in the Midwest

The Bullitt Center is the world’s first Living Building certified commercial office building, and at 10 years old, the project still makes headlines for the energy it saves and even generates each year. This mass timber structure was the first project built under the City of Seattle’s Living Building Pilot Program. As a result, the six-story, mixed-use office building uses less than a quarter of the amount of energy a typical Seattle office building uses in a year—the Bullitt Center even produces 30% more energy than it consumes thanks to its rooftop solar panels.

Owner: The Bullitt Foundation
Architect: The Miller Hull Partnership
General Contractor: Schuchart

DCI Engineers served as the project’s Engineer of Record and designed the building’s timber and steel gravity resisting system along with the structural steel grid which supports the building’s roof and array of solar panels.

Stay tuned for more projects in our Mass Timber Firsts series!