Berekley Electric Cooperative - John's Island

Summarize the project's program, features, and achievements: Berkeley Electric needed to upgrade their outdated headquarter facilities at their Moncks Corner, South Carolina location to better serve their members. Due to the proximity to the coast, all of the buildings on the campus were designed to withstand CAT IV Hurricane winds up to 156 mph and large missile impacts utilizing tilt-up concrete construction and laminated glazing. The buildings consist of a new two-story office building, central warehouse, enclosed vehicle and equipment storage, with attached covered material storage and a separate maintenance building with an attached covered vehicle storage building. Everything, other than the maintenance building, is accessible under one roof. The office building is composed of a steel structure with structural tilt-up concrete exterior and TPO membrane roofing over insulation and metal deck and steel trusses. The enclosed vehicle and equipment storage, warehouse, and maintenance buildings are composed of pre-engineered metal building structure with tilt-up concrete insulated sandwich panel veneer with standing seam metal roofing. The covered material storage building is composed of open-air pre-engineered metal building structure with standing seam metal roofing.

What obstacles were overcome related to the schedule, budget, program, specification, site, etc. on this project? The project was originally designed to be on a different site. When it became clear that outside forces would not allow that to happen, the design team pivoted to a new site and accomplished the re-design still on time. Utilizing tilt-up concrete construction helped facilitate the new design.

Please communicate any engineering complexities or unique features of the panel design for this project. ? The facility sits far enough away from Highway 52 that there needed to be layers to the building to create interest and then bring the building down to the human scale at the ACM canopy entry. Near the entry there are large ‘flag’ panels that make up what is a dynamic and visually appealing member entrance. The employee entrances also add layers and shadow lines to the building to create interest and obvious entry points for employees. At the areas of the building that utilize pre-engineered metal building (PEMB) structure, insulated tilt-up ‘sandwich’ panels were used. This eliminated the need for interior insulation, which makes the facility more durable on a day to day basis and longer lasting.

What is the potential for this project's impact on the community and/or environment? This campus will allow Berkeley Electric to serve their members more efficiently, along with providing a facility that can function under the most difficult weather, because the entire facility is designed to withstand Cat IV hurricane conditions. Berkeley Electric anchors this community by providing more than just power. They provide fund raising initiatives, blood drives, community cleanup and more. This facility will be the hub of the community for generations of members to come.