St. John's High School - Student Commons
Shrewsbury, MA
Daigle Engineers, Inc. was the Structural Engineer of Record for the Student Commons project at St. John's High School in Shrewsbury, MA. The project involved extensive renovation and a 12,000 square foot steel framed addition to an existing building replacing the original cafeteria with a new modern facility incorporating a new kitchen, cafeteria, and entrance lobby.

A clerestory was designed over the main space which had to bridge the main cafeteria along with the adjacent flat roof space without the benefit of intermediate columns. Cross girders were employed to support the upper superstructure and the heavy snow drift area above.

The lobby space had a cathedral ceiling with embedded eaves providing hidden flat troughs for roof drainage along the sides. The steel that bridged the lobby had to be formed to accommodate the cathedral shape plus the step downs at the eaves on each side.

Due to interferences with the gymnasium footings, foundation strap beams had to be used to place the new steel directly adjacent to the existing building. Seismic separation between the new and the existing allowed the construction to be done with minimal penalties to the main facility.



Architect: Belanger & Foley, Inc.

Contractor: Lauring Construction Company, Inc.