Welcome to C&S’s new Southeast regional newsletter! As a valued client to our Southeast practice, you are receiving this newsletter to give you a quarterly update on what we’ve been up to locally and nationally. Our aim is to provide some helpful knowledge and allow you to get to know our firm better with each issue.
In this issue:
- Cruise Terminal 3 (CT-3) Project Brief
- C&S Announces Growth in Orlando Office
- Tampa Office Relocates
- Engineer Spotlight – Bryn Currie, P.E.
- Insights – Airports and Sustainability – Four Reasons Not to Give Up
- Insights – Is Ice Storage Right for Your Next Project?
- Rules of Thumb – Working With Linked Models in Revit
Cruise Terminal 3 (CT-3)
Commerce and tourism growth has steadily increased at Cape Canaveral. In concert with this growth, the Canaveral Port Authority has been expanding its facilities to meet this demand, and prepare for the next generation of cruise ships with global itineraries. Following the widening of the Panama Canal, cruise lines have been commissioning ships that carry upwards of 6,000 passengers—double the size of the ships previous entering the port. In preparation for these Panamax ships, the port began building larger facilities—starting with Cruise Terminal 3.
This facility boasts almost 200,000 conditioned square feet, with the capacity to process 6,000+ guests for next generation cruise ships. C&S was part of a great design team, led by Bermello-Ajamil in a process that took upwards of 14 months to design, and about another 12 months to build. Our collective team cleverly built-in energy savings and functionality—alongside stunning design elements chosen by the cruise line operator. The building’s structure is an impressive system of almost 80-foot tilt wall panels, and steel “Launchpad” entry structure. The MEP systems were developed with sustainability in mind, and the entire 3-building site is cooled via a 400 ton chiller plant, complete with ice storage system. All elements were modeled in 3D at a 350 BIM level, and hosted on Autodesk’s BIM 360 cloud server—this greatly improved performance for all disciplines involved.
C-T3 is slated to welcome its first ship in the fall of 2020.
C&S Announces Growth in Orlando Office 
C&S is proud to announce the integration of Rick Swisher Architect, Inc., into our growing Southeast practice. We look forward to offering our existing and new clients a new depth of local expertise and service.
Tampa Office Relocates
C&S’s Florida practice is growing, and our Tampa staff are officially on the move! After acquiring a 3,700- square-foot suite in the Airport Executive Center located at 2203 N. Lois Ave, C&S worked with local firm Ai Collaborative to develop plans for the team’s new digs. The contemporary style office features sizeable interior offices and an open floorplan with low-rise cubicles to accommodate staff collaboration. In addition, our two conference rooms are equipped with state-of-the-art technology, allowing our team to host our clients digitally and in-person with real-time page turns, live working sessions, and walkthrough of their design projects. Construction has recently completed and the team will occupy the space in the near future, following our wellness protocols and government guidelines during COVID-19.
Engineer Spotlight – Bryn Currie, P.E.
Our Southeast Facilities Department Manager, Bryn Currie, grew up in the foothills of the Catskill Mountains in New York. He left high school a year early to attend Clarkson University in pursuit of a mechanical engineering degree and graduated in 2009 with a Masters of Engineering. Hired right after college, Bryn has played many roles within the C&S Companies, all within the engineering and construction fields. After spending 4 years in Syracuse, NY, he moved to Orlando, FL to help build a facilities engineering practice that now extends along the I-4 corridor. Bryn is a true collaborator at heart, and enjoys working within a team on just about any project. When not in the office, Bryn is often building furniture in his shop, or grabbing a drink downtown with friends.
Question & Answer with Bryn Currie
Q: Since your transition to department manager, what have you learned about yourself?
A: I’ve learned to be more mindful of myself, and understand what makes me tick. I’ve always been a results-oriented person, and I’ve become much more comfortable in reconciling my expectations with extrinsic forces.
Q: Who has impacted you most as a mentor or leader in your career?
A: I’ve been extremely fortunate during my career at C&S, to have worked with several great leaders throughout our lines of business. I spent some time working within our construction company in the northeast, which exposed me to some “salt of the earth” types. These guys helped me understand the consequences of design as it relates to constructability, that not many engineers understand. While still early in my career, I did a lot of construction inspection both for DOT and DOD work that further reinforced the connections between design and construction—this time from a third-party perspective which was great! Over the last several years working in Central Florida, I have worked with many project managers and architects external to C&S—each of which I have learned something from. I like to look for the good (and bad) traits in the people I work with, and see how they apply to my own leadership style.
Q: Through the project design process, what element do you find most rewarding?
A: I think I am somewhat a virtuoso personality type at heart—the process of design itself is energizing to me. I really enjoy that uneasy feeling at the beginning of a daunting process, when you have no idea where it will end up! But then being able to walk through a space you have only seen for so long in a Revit model, now finally a reality—that makes sense of all the uncertainty, and energizes me for the next challenge.
Q: How do you qualitatively measure a project’s success?
A: A successful project in my opinion, is one that all parties feel proud of in the end. From the owner, to the builders, and the designers. It’s hard to qualify, as the emotions become so dynamic towards the end of a project.
Q: What or whom first inspired you to become an engineer?
A: I can still vividly remember playing with wooden blocks as a preschooler, and seeing what I could build. My family always encouraged me to keep building “things”, so I attribute that to them. Growing up, I kept dismantling my dad’s gadgets or items around the house to see how they worked, and that’s what solidified becoming an engineer for me since grade school. Although I had originally considered being an architect!
Q: As a leader in the engineering profession, how do you connect and leverage colleagues of all ages, disciplines, and experience to reach team goals?
A: Team-building is the most important part of collaborative design. Anybody with an understanding of math can design a particular component, but it takes interpersonal relationships to interconnect all the components into a whole. I look for complimentary traits in teammates to see how everyone fits and understand how to drive the design forward to a common goal. A large part of this process is getting everyone to recognize that each of us is also a human, and we’re all going to make several mistakes along the way.
Q: What is an engineering formula you’ll never be able to get out of your head?
A: NERD ALERT—Newton’s Second Law. My entire college curriculum was built around material strengths, statics, and mechanics so this was at the core of just about every homework assignment in my life! I can still appreciate its use even now, when I get to design simple machines on my more “fun” projects!
Airports and Sustainability – Four Reasons Not to Give Up
In a time of unprecedented challenges, a strengthened commitment to sustainability can make a major difference. It shows communities that airports care, it facilitates balanced solutions, and it enables financial stability even with uncertainty. While the entire aviation industry pivots, we reflect on what this means and why sustainability may be more important now than ever.
Is Ice Storage Right for Your Next Project?
Ice storage is an HVAC technology that can be applied to many different industries. It is a tool to save the client electricity costs and potentially get more useful capacity out of their HVAC systems.
But what exactly is it and when should it be considered? Managing engineer Matthew McQuinn shares his insights on the topic.
Working with Linked Models in Revit 
So often in vertical construction, we find ourselves working with many Revit models from different disciplines (e.g. architecture, interiors, structural, MEP). Here are few helpful guidelines for working with multiple models at a time:
Always pin any linked models.
Helps avoid moving a link to a wrong location.
Verify how to link models with the entire design team.
Revit has a few different ways to insert linked models (e.g. using shared coordinates), so it’s important to determine how models are to be linked together to ensure coordinated orientation.
Remember to Copy/Monitor any grids and levels from the host model.
This will help create floor plans that are aligned to the host model and are modeled at the appropriate heights.
Be cognizant of hosted elements.
For example, MEP elements (lights, diffusers, etc.) can be hosted to a grid ceiling, walls or equipment. Modifying these hosts could unintentionally remove or disconnect the hosted MEP elements.
Worksets are handy filters native to Revit.
Consider using them when linking in other models of many disciplines, and be aware that linked models may already have filters applied to them.
