BCRA Design

BCRA provided Design/Build Design Services for the Air Force/Navy Culinary Training School at Ft Lee, VA.  The new Academic Training Building is an addition to the existing school, along with a Readiness-in-Base Services Training Building (RIBS) with accompanying field conditions training facilities.  The Academic Training Building includes multiple kitchen and baking labs, as well as a dining facility with classrooms to support the on-site training environment.  The second floor of the new addition is joined to the second floor of the original Culinary School by a walkway.  Along with improved building envelope technology for energy savings, the Culinary School contains multiple state-of-the-art specialized mechanical systems, such as ventilated hoods over cooking areas, on both floors.

The Readiness-in-Base Services Training Building (RIBS) and field training area is located at a remote site on Base.  The RIBS building houses a large classroom as well as offices and a large storage room to support the field training. Great care was taken to comply with Federal Anti-Terrorism and Force Protection requirements with blast resistance engineered into the structural systems, windows and doors.  The Culinary Addition is designed to LEED Silver and the RIBS training complex is designed and built using LEED practices. The project delivery method included the use of a Building Information Model for the purpose of de-conflicting any mechanical and food service equipment, as well as to generate a presentation rendering.

The Design-Build team overcame several challenges on this project and approached design solutions to benefit the stakeholders.  This culinary building was a complicated addition to an existing building that had undergone construction under several different building codes.  Interpretation of the code took careful research and collaboration. At the midpoint of design, BCRA was awarded a contract modification for an extensive re-design of the RIBS Complex. The Design Team met with the Air Force RIBS and held a Design Charette with the end users to identify the areas of re-design.  The design team incorporated the changes while maintaining the original overall project schedule.  BCRA also encountered previously undocumented environmental contamination and cultural artifacts discovered on-site during construction.  Plans were developed pre-construction for sampling soils and investigating archeological artifacts if they were encountered; BCRA altered the design and relocated the facility to accommodate remediation.  With close coordination with Government and the contractor, the situation was mitigated and the project schedule critical path was not disrupted. 

BCRA was the lead architect for this project and provided Interior design and furniture selection, as well as civil and structural engineering.