From the first moment Mark Finney, AIA, Principal of Sugimura Finney Architects, (SFA) contacted us to collaborate with his firm on the upcoming Educare project, we had an inkling from Mark’s level of enthusiasm that this would be no ordinary school construction project.  We knew the project was going to be special but had no idea of the unique staffing confluences that would really make it so unique. Franklin McKinley’s new 28,000 square-foot Educare campus includes 12 state-of-the-art classrooms, multiple indoor and outdoor learning spaces, a family resource center and The Early Learning Career Center. 

The structural design was executed by Hohbach-Lewin Senior Associate, Greg Rodrigues. Because of the emphasis Educare places on early education opportunities, it seems only fitting that the structural engineer for the project would have the rare chance to work with SFA’s designer, who, not coincidently, shares the same last name.  Greg’s oldest daughter Marissa, a 2012 graduate of Cal Poly Pomona’s Architecture program, was assigned the primary responsibility of producing the architectural Revit model and has played a pivotal role assisting SFA’s effort to shepherd the project through construction.  “The kid did pretty well for herself, if I do say so myself.” opined Greg, with more than a little bit of fatherly pride.  “It was a really fun experience to work with Marissa on this project; although when the inevitable and usual differences of opinion between architect and engineer arose,  I had to bite my lip and resist the urge to say do it my way because I said so or hey, father knows best!”.  Throughout the process, Marissa sought to maintain an appropriate amount of professional separation and decorum and thus did not mention the connection to the contractors working on the project – her cover was blown however at the conclusion of one of the site meetings when she slipped, “Hey, Dad you forgot your notebook!”  Double takes all around!

Hohbach-Lewin provided fully integrated structural and  civil engineering design services for the project. In keeping with Educare’s mission of thinking differently and finding new and better ways to do things, producing the design in a  BIM environment was a given; 3-dimensional modeling and project structural engineering  construction  documents were produced utilizing Revit.