Texas A&M University Zachry Engineering Education Complex

Project Name

Zachry Engineering Education Complex

Size (sq ft)

530,000

HEI Project Profile - Long

Starting with an aging building, originally constructed in 1972, Texas A&M’s Engineering Education Complex received a renovation to all 320,000 SF of the existing building as well as a 200,000 SF addition. Home to a design center, labs for experiential learning, classrooms, lecture halls, office spaces, conference rooms, and several interconnected atria, the complex promotes student collaboration through multidisciplinary interaction and transparent learning environments. Henderson Engineers completed fire protection engineering and code consultation services for this renovation and addition. For the first phase of design, our team provided a code study and written summary of the building, fire and life safety code requirements for the atrium spaces, and initial smoke control design criteria calculations for the atria and associated communicating spaces. The next phase of the design included general code and smoke control system consultations for the design of the atria and the associated smoke control system based upon the prescriptive requirements of the adopted Building and Life Safety Codes and NFPA 92. Our highly skilled team of fire protection engineers assisted with an engineering judgment for a specific field condition relating to fire/smoke dampers that could not be installed in the floor plane. The dampers were installed about 36” above the floor and the engineering judgment allowed the exposed sections of duct between the floor and the dampers to be protected with a 2-hour fire wrap.

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