lg&e center tower

The LG&E Center is a 328 foot tall tower containing approximately 288,000 square feet of Class A office space in 23 floors.  It is currently the 11th tallest structure in Louisville, KY.  RAI's Engineers were responsible for the structural design of the building.

The structure contains a central core of concrete walls with concrete columns and post-tensioned concrete beams.

KFc Yum! center

RAI Engineering, in collaboration with Walter P. Moore Structural Engineers, designed the new 22,000 seat arena located on the Ohio River in downtown Louisville.  RAI was responsible for the design of the building foundations, south entry/concourse steel framing, and the exterior wall steel framing.

Design challenges included placing new foundations so that they avoided the existing foundations from the previous LG&E structure.

UNIVERSITY OF LOUISVILLE
STUDENT RECREATION CENTER

This $37.5 million structure contains 128,000 square feet of space including 6 gymnasiums, fitness & weight rooms, and an indoor jogging track.  Structural highlights include the custom designed steel trusses that span 105 feet to allow for the stacked gymnasiums and a custom designed curved plate beam to support the cantilevered jogging track.

RAI Engineering was awarded the 2014 National Council of Structural Engineers Association (NCSEA) Excellence in Structural Engineering Award for the design of this structure.

university of louisville
BELKNAP ACADEMIC CLASSROOM BUILDING

This $80 million classroom building contains 170,000 square feet of space over 4 floors.  The building frame is comprised of concrete columns and a concrete waffle grid floor framing system.  Structural bays span 42 feet in both directions to provide large open classroom spaces that are necessary for the modern active learning classrooms.  Structural highlights include curved concrete perimeter beams supported by cantilevered concrete framing, a two story interior atrium space, and a concrete framed grand staircase.

university of louisville foundation
the nucleus

This eight story structure contains 200,000 sf of office space and a 6,000 sf green rooftop deck and terrace. Framing consists of a concrete moment-resisting frame. The North & South bays of the structure span 45 feet to provide large, open spaces with unobstructed views.

RAI Engineering was awarded the 2013 Concrete Reinforcing Steel Institute (CRSI) Honors Award for the design of this structure.

EASTERN STATE HOSPITAL

RAI Engineering designed this $129 million project.  The project consists of a 273,000 square foot main hospital and four separate 11,000 square foot personal care homes.  The hospital has two green rooftop patios and multiple exterior screened porches.

RAI utilized the Sideplate steel moment frame system, which provided a savings of 75 tons of steel compaired to traditional steel moment connections.

UNIVERSITY OF LOUISVILLE
CLINICAL & TRANSLATION RESEARCH BUILDING

RAI Engineeering provided the structural design of this $136 million structure.  It contains 290,000 sf in 7 floors and a full basement that extends under the entry plaza.  Structural highlights include cantilevered floor framing across the entire entry facade, complex stair framing to produce the architectural "fingers" at the stair towers, cantilevered exterior balconies, suspended elevator pits, and vibration controlled floors meeting vc-c levels.

RAI was awarded the 2010 National Council of Structural Engineers Association (NCSEA) Excellence in Structural Engineering Award for the design of this structure.

UNIVERSITY OF LOUISVILLE
CARDIOVASCULAR INNOVATION INSTITUTE

This $28.4 million structure contains 85,000 square feet of space over 6 floors plus a basement.  Structural highlights include the long span curved concrete beams, a suspended elevator pit, and a basement that extends under the adjacent plaza.  Due to the structure abutting existing buildings on 3 sides, the foundation pile caps required a custom design to support the eccentric column loads.

RAI Engineering was awarded the 2010 Concrete Reinforcing Steel Institute (CRSI) Design Award for the design of this structure.

THE UNIVERSITY OF LOUISVILLE
SHUMAKER RESEARCH BUILDING

This $47.8 million structure houses 103,261 square feet of state-of-the-art equipment for microtechnology research and education.  The research performed within the nano-scale research labs requires extreme vibration control.  The level of vibration mitigation is such that a person walking down an adjacent hallway can not be detected by the research equipment or the results would be flawed.  The structural had to be specially designed to mitigate this vibration, as well as the vibration coming from the nearby railroad track.

National vibration experts stated that it would be impossible to meet the vibration criteria required at this building location.  RAI Engineering performed exhaustive research into vibration studies.  The end result was a structure that met the required vc-d vibration criteria and received national acclaim for vibration mitigation.

JD NICHOLS CAMPUS FOR INNOVATION &
ENTREPRENEURSHIP PARKING GARAGE

This 6 story structure contains 800 parking spaces in 279,000 square feet of space.  The structure is comprised of a concrete frame with beams spanning 62 feet.  The concrete beams and slabs are post-tensioned.

Structural features include the concave framing at the S/E corner to support the vertical LED "light saber" as well as cantilevered concrete beams to support the steel stairs at the N/W entry tower.

louisville SLUGGER FIELD

RAI Engineering, in collaboration with HNTB Sports, designed the 13,300 seat baseball stadium for the Louisville Bats.  Design challenges included the integration of the existing historic Brinly-Hardy warehouse that was constructed in 1839.

RAI was responsible for the design of the modifications to the existing warehouse including analyzing and redesigning the existing roof trusses to fit with the overlap of the new stadium.

university of louisville
sTUDENT ACTIVITIES CENTER ADDITION

The centerpiece of this $40 million project is the roughly 40,000 sf two story addition.  Structural challenges included designing the concrete beams to span 63 feet across the 10,000 sf Grand Ballroom, while also supporting the weight of the 22 foot tall operable partition walls which are used to separate the room into multiple smaller spaces.  Additionally, as the addition butts up to the existing structure, multiple columns had to bear on cantilevered transfer beams so that new building foundations did not interfere with the existing building foundation.

JEFFERSON COMMUNITY & TECHNICAL COLLEGE
aLLIED HEALTH BUILDING

RAI Engineering designed this $25.6 million structure.  It contains 106,866 square feet of classroom, laboratory, and office spaces including a 6,700 square foot lecture hall on the first floor.  The framing system is a concrete moment-resisting frame.  Multiple column footings were located directly adjacent to the existing building.  The eccentrically loaded pile caps required custom designed tie beams to transfer the overturning moment, along with custom designed shear framing to distribute the large column shear loads at the edge of the pile cap.  The large lecture hall on the first floor required 60 foot long concrete beams to span over the space.

KENTUCKY CENTER FOR THE ARTS

This project consisted of an addition/renovation of the existing structure.  Additions of 5,900 square feet were added to expand the north and south lobbies and the main entrance on the south was reconfigured.  Additionally the exterior plazas were remodeled.

THE LOUISVILLE ZOO
MULTIPLE EXHIBITS

RAI Engineering was the structural engineer on multiple projects at the Louisville Zoo including:

LOUISVILLE WATER COMPANY
ZORN AVENUE PUMP STATION #1

The Louisville Water Company's Pump Station #1 located on Zorn Avenue was constructed in 1856 and was the first pump station in Louisville.  After over 150 years, LWC renovated the structure to turn it into an event space as it is no longer in use for pumping.

The front and rear brick walls of the West wing had begun to bow laterally.  Custom horizontal steel trusses were installed to adequately brace the walls to provide many more years of life of the building.  New stairs were additionally installed.

PENWOOD OFFICE PARK

This new office building contains 49,000 square feet over three floors.  There is a roof top deck with an enclosed catering area and shade canopy for entertaining.  Each floor has cantilevered balconies on the front and rear of the building.  Structural framing includes cmu stair and elevator towers with elevated concrete slabs on metal deck supported by a steel frame.

ADVANCED ENT & ALLERGY
MEADOWVIEW

RAI Engineering designed this new 25,000 square foot medical office building.  The building has a second floor over part of the space.  The structure was designed to support a future 3,000 sf addition to the second floor.  Structural features include multiple glass towers with sloping exterior walls and double pitched roof framing.

GATEWAY COMMUNITY & TECHNICAL COLLEGE
Boone Campus

This is the first building on the Boone Campus.  It is 34,000 square feet in size with a construction cost of $5.3 million.  The framing system is a combination of steel and load bearing masonry.  The structure contains a circular stairway surrounded by glass framing, as well as several other curved glass walls.  The curved glass facade required detailed steel framing to support the glass walls.

MARRIOTT HOTEL
PEDESTRIAN WALKWAY

This pedestrian walkway bridge was constructed to connect the new Marriott Hotel to the adjacent parking garage to the West, and then to the Kentucky International Convention Center to the North.

In order to avoid disruption of pedestrian traffic on the sidewalk below, the columns were placed against the existing parking garage.  RAI Engineering's innovative design included a custom "C" shaped steel frame for each column that was embedded into concrete and set into a caisson.