Engineering

Engineering is at the heart of every Shapiro & Duncan design/build project. The licensed engineers who staff our Engineering Department are able to leverage extensive knowledge of job costing and constructability to create project designs that are both functional and efficient. The end result is the high level of design quality communicated through fully coordinated documents.

Informed Design

Like consulting engineers, the Shapiro & Duncan engineering team is on every project starting at the ground level. Beginning with the procurement stage, our engineers work in a consultative mode with the company’s estimating and construction departments to incorporate their feedback into “informed designs” that ultimately produce better projects.

Hands-On Involvement

By meeting with the client during the earliest stages of a project to get a feel for constructability factors, our engineering team is better able to produce realistic conceptual estimates. This hands-on involvement continues in the pre-construction and fabrication stages, and our engineering pros stay with the project throughout its life cycle. If a building owner or engineer has a technical question, our Engineering Department can assist the Shapiro & Duncan project manager in providing the answer.

Tools of the Engineering Trade

Our engineering team is at the heart of Shapiro & Duncan’s Building Information Modeling (BIM) process. Team members are expert in the use of the following design/build technology tools:

• Autodesk Revit (for creation of high-quality digital designs)
• AutoCAD MEP (the industry-leading drawing platform for mechanical systems)
• Trane Trace 700 (for HVAC load calculation and energy simulation)
• eQuest (the energy modeling program developed by the U.S. Department of Energy)

One of the unique synergies offered by our Engineering Department is close coordination with Shapiro & Duncan’s 51,000 square-foot Fabrication Facility located in Landover, Maryland.

Taking the LEED

When it comes to environmentally friendly design that meets the highest Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) standards, nobody does it better than the Shapiro & Duncan Engineering Department. With several LEED APs (Accredited Professionals) on staff, and professional engineers who are licensed in Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia, our engineering team can deliver “green” design/build projects anywhere in the Greater Washington area.