The new East Point Elemetary educational facility is located in the east end of St. John's. The new school is approximately 36,000sf and will house students from Kindergarten to Grade 6, replacing the existing Virginia Park School.
The new school will be constructed while the existing school remains opened to students. This requirement greatly limits the site for the new building. In order to provide construction access around the new building and appropriate clearance to the existing, the new building footprint had to be kept as narrow as possible. A two-storey layout with equal area distribution on each floor, as much as possible, also serves to reduce the footprint.
The structure is generally conventional steel construction with masonry block infill walls. The main level is a poured in place concrete slab and the second level consists of a 64mm concrete topping over metal deck supported on open web steel joists (OWSJ), steel beams and columns.
The roof structure consists of metal deck on a structural steel joist, beam & columns.
The lateral load resisting system consists of the roof deck and structure acting as a horizontal diaphragm, transferring all wind and earthquake loads by vertical V-Bracing to the foundations.
Scope of Services
DBA was the structure consultant for this multi phased Design-Bid-Build project. Our responsibilities included production of contract documents for the sub-structure and super-structure of the building.
Design Challenges
Site limitations and occupancy of the existing school proved to be the main design challenges for the team. The site forced the building footprint and lead to a design that was ordered around a single central corridor with the larger spaces, the gymnasium, lunchroom, etc. – located in a separate wing from the classrooms. To further increase the separation between the new and existing buildings, the new school will be pushed back into the hillside and the plan kinked in the middle 45 degrees so it brackets the existing building.
