Geiger Engineers

Geiger Engineers
Private company
Industry Structural Engineering
Founded 1988
Headquarters Suffern, New York
Key people
 David M. Campbell, P.E. (CEO)
Paul A. Gossen, P.E., F.ASCE (Chief Engineer)
Stephen P. Emery, P.E. (Principal)
Timothy Mills (Principal )
Karen Lynch, P.E. (Principal)
Keith MacBain, Ph.D., P.E. (Principal)
Services Consulting
Tensile Membrane Structures
Long Span Structures
Sports Facilities
Retractable Roofs
Entertainment Engineering
Website http://www.geigerengineers.com/

Geiger Engineers is a structural engineering consulting firm located northwest of New York City. Founded in 1988 by David H. Geiger,[1] the company has worked on large projects throughout the world. Building from a solid foundation in long span and tensile membrane structures, Geiger Engineers has branched out over the years into a range of specialties from designing sports facilities to providing engineering services for the entertainment industry.

Recent high-profile projects include the USTA's Arthur Ashe Stadium's new retractable roof and new Louis Armstrong Stadium, the new roof for BC Place Stadium in Vancouver, Canada and the Flushing Meadows Corona Park Pool and Rink in Queens, New York which won the national 2009 AISC Ideas2 Award for Innovative Design in Engineering and Architecture with Structural Steel.[2]

In addition to providing a wide range of engineering services, Geiger Engineers has been involved in developing new technologies. For example, in 2008 it was announced that the new Tensotherm composite fabric with Lumira aerogel (for insulation) would be used for the first time on the Dedmon Athletic Center’s new roof. “Working with Cabot and Geiger Engineers, we now have…[a] long-wearing insulated light transmissive fabric system that…meets performance standards and…[provides] higher energy-efficiency.”[3]

History

In 1968 while an adjunct professor at Columbia University David Geiger was contacted by Davis-Brody, a New York architectural firm. With their design of a 30-story tall, air-supported fabric structure, Davis-Brody had won the design competition for the U.S. exhibition hall at Expo '70 in Osaka, Japan. They needed a structural engineer with the expertise to implement their design and they turned to Dr. Geiger.[4] In order to meet the lower than expected budget passed by Congress, Geiger changed the design and invented the low profile cable-restrained air-supported roof.[5] The success of the Osaka Pavilion led to a surge in the design and construction of air-supported roofs.

After Osaka, Geiger founded Geiger Berger Associates with Horst Berger and the firm remained central to the new-found interest in utilizing air-supported roofs. Eight stadia were built with air-supported roofs in the U.S. during the 1970s and early 1980s with Geiger Berger Associates as the structural engineers for all of them.[6]

As important as the air-supported roof projects was Geiger Berger's work in pioneering long-span cable, tensile membrane, and tensegrity structures. Among the notable structures engineered by Geiger Berger are the tensile membrane Hajj Terminal which in 2010 won the AIA 25-Year Award;[7] the first tensegrity type dome which was built for the Olympic Gymnastics Venue in Seoul, Korea;[8] and the world's first translucent insulated fabric roof for the Talisman Centre, Calgary. In addition, Geiger Berger was involved in the development of structural fabric materials such as Teflon PTFE coated fiberglass.[1]

By the early 1980s, the partnership between David Geiger and Horst Berger began to break apart[6] and in 1983 Geiger Berger Associates was dissolved. Geiger then founded Geiger Associates which was bought by KKBN in 1986. In 1988, the year before he died, David Geiger helped found Geiger Engineers with a group of former colleagues from Geiger Associates.[1]

Notable Projects

New Roof on BC Place
BC Place's New Roof during its construction
Talisman Centre

Sports facilities and convention centers

Renovations and expansions

Entertainment and recreation projects

Tensile Membrane

Domes (primarily as Geiger Berger Associates)

Icahn Stadium

Gallery

Notes

  1. 1 2 3 "Geiger Engineers". Geiger Engineers. Retrieved 2014-08-29.
  2. ↑ "Ideas2 Awards 2009 Winners" (PDF). AISC. Retrieved 2014-10-02.
  3. ↑ "Cabot – Investor Relations". Cabot Corporation. Retrieved 2011-06-03.
  4. ↑ Claude Charlier (January 1988). "A Stadium with a "Lid"". Smithsonian.
  5. ↑ "David H. Geiger Obituary". New York Times. Retrieved 2011-07-18.
  6. 1 2 Jim DeStefano, P.E. (November 2007). "Horst Berger". NCSEA/CASE/SEI.
  7. ↑ "SOM's Hajj Terminal Wins AIA 25-Year Award". Fabric Architecture. Retrieved 2014-10-01.
  8. ↑ "Olympic Domes First of Their Kind". Engineering News Record. March 6, 1986. Retrieved 2011-07-18.

External links

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