Engineering

Cost Effective. Coordinated. Constructible.

The KDB engineering group is an integrated team of experienced design engineers, coordinators and virtual design and construction specialists (VD&C) that work in conjunction with our preconstruction, estimating, skilled trades and commissioning teams to form an integrated project delivery team. This integrated approach allows KDB to utilize our extensive cost estimating, engineering design, coordination, fabrication, installation, and commissioning experience to deliver high performance, high quality, cost effective mechanical and plumbing systems that meet the needs of our clients

Professional Engineers

6

Design Engineers/ Coordinators

27

Virtual Design & Construction

6

Engineering & Design

Our engineering services are focused around our experience and an integrated workflow that utilizes the latest technology to create cost effective high performance mechanical and plumbing system designs that are well planned, coordinated and detailed during design.  The KDB engineering staff consists of licensed and certified senior and design mechanical and plumbing engineers with 5 to 30+ years of mechanical and plumbing system engineering design and analysis for a wide variety of building types and markets.

The KDB engineering team has the ability to act as either the mechanical and plumbing engineer or record (EOR), collaboratively with a consulting engineering firm as EOR, or as a design assist partner to provide a full range of building mechanical and plumbing engineering services.  The engineering team members have extensive design and specification experience for a wide variety of mechanical and plumbing systems including but not limited to the following:

  • Building Control & Management Systems
  • Central Utility Plants
  • Steam, Hot Water, Chilled Water and Condensed Water Systems
  • Air Conditioning, Air Handling and Duct Distribution Systems
  • Passive and Active Radiant Systems
  • Energy Supply and Recovery Systems
  • Thermal Storage & Geothermal Systems
  • Laboratory and Medical Gas Systems
  • Domestic Water, Sanitary, Storm and Gas Systems
  • Laboratory and Hazardous Exhaust Systems
  • High Purity Water Systems
  • Laboratory Waste Systems

BIM Coordination

The experience skilled plumbing and piping tradesman in the KDB coordination group bring up to 25 years of real world experience and the ability to translate engineering designs into fabrication ready constructible designs.  An experienced senior coordinator leads the coordination effort on every KDB project and is engaged early as an integrated part the design and construction team to address coordination and constructability.  This proactive approach allows us to begin to incorporate and plan for constructible elements and assemblies such as sleeves, hangers, supports, fixtures, equipment, pre-fabrication and other associated MEP components early in design.  This result is designs that are better coordinated and closer to being “fabrication ready” which allows us to begin fabrication earlier.

Virtual Design & Construction

The KDB Virtual Design and Construction (VD&C) group operates to support our engineering, coordination, project management and field construction team with the use of the most up-to-date building information modeling, laser scanning, laser layout, virtual reality (VR) and soon augmented reality (AR) technologies. KDB utilizes REVIT, REVIT Fabrication, BIM360 and Navisworks, during all phases of design, coordination, fabrication and construction as part of enabling our workflow from a virtual design model to a fully coordinated virtual fabrication model.  The VD&C group has developed custom in house applications that run within the Revit Fabrication tool that speeds up the placement of elements such as sleeves and hangers in the model which reduces the time it takes to get these critical elements to the field for installation.

Related Projects

Examples of recent projects where the KDB engineering team served as either the primary engineer or as a design assist partner.
View All Projects

East Campus Building 2

Fort Meade, MD

NIST Building 245

Gaithersburg, MD

7272 Winsonsin Ave

Bethesda, MD

Engineering & Design leadership team

Chris Kirchner, PE, HBDP, BEMP, LEED AP

Principal Engineer

Mr. Kirchner is a Mechanical Engineer with over 26 years of experience; specializing in the design and delivery of complex Design-Bid-Build, Design Assist, Design-
Build and Integrated Design Delivery projects. Excels in developing engineering designs which meet or exceed owner requirements while maintaining high performance, capital and operating cost requirements. Kirchner oversees design and coordination department with responsibility for document production, project progression, coordination and fabrication.

Mr. Kirchner holds a Masters of Science and Bachelor of Science in Architectural Engineering and is a licensed Professional Engineer in MD, VA, PA, and DC.

Tim Dashiell

Coordination Manager

Zandee Calma

Director of VDC Applications & Technology

Mr. McGraw is a Mechanical Engineer in the state of Virginia with 12 years of experience in Design-Build and Design-Assist delivery projects. He is responsible for leading the design of mechanical systems after procurement through design, construction coordination, installation and commissioning/start-up.

Mr. McGraw is a licensed Professional Engineer and holds a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering