Driving Performance for P3 Transportation Projects
Entuitive started with a foundation of three core values — collaboration, creativity, and advanced technical expertise. Today, Michael Meschino is Principal in charge of the transportation team offering structural and building envelope solutions to some of the most complex challenges in the industry.
These values continue to be the driving force behind the firm’s approach to working with clients on projects around the world. “Understanding how what we do fits into the broader picture is very important,” Meschino says, “and requires a level of collaboration and client focus that’s become our cornerstone.”
Creativity is fundamental to developing design solutions that meet performance-driven requirements — especially on technically-challenging transportation projects that run through the heart of large cities and include interfaces with structures, services, and other systems that require technical, constructible solutions.
Using advanced modelling programs — including those developed in-house — allows Entuitive to quickly analyze multiple options within a set of design parameters to test viability, maximize efficiency, and reduce risks at a very early stage.
Working with consortium partners
The company’s philosophy is wellsuited to working with consortium partners on P3 projects where the goal is to achieve the client’s performance requirements in partnership with a larger team of architects, contractors, and facility managers. “Our P3 process combines our values to deliver a solution that features design excellence, is constructible, and helps manage the significant risks that can often be associated with these projects,” he says.
On the Eglinton Crosstown light rail transit project, for example, Entuitive was contracted by Crosslinx Transit Solutions to deliver the structural design of three underground stations. The firm took a creative approach by considering the interaction of the station structure with the surrounding soil, a practice not used by the local transit authority. By accounting for the actual soil stiffness properties, acting in conjunction with the concrete station structure, the demand on the structure was decreased, resulting in reduced structural thicknesses and reinforcement requirements. “We developed a design solution that saved a significant amount of money for the project as a whole,” says Meschino. Their unique company philosophy means that the processes to develop these kinds of innovative solutions are embedded within their DNA as a firm.