Our Philosophy
Across a diverse range of structures and a broad variety of project types, Lund Opsahl strives for active team collaboration, creativity in structural design, and clarity of intent in construction.
Responsive Listening
It’s impossible to provide good solutions without understanding what our design partners need. Listening is essential to ensuring that structure responds to and supports the needs of the project.
Depth of Experience
We share our collective knowledge internally to solve design challenges – every engineer is supported by all the resources and experience we have to offer.
Robust Visioning
Teaming, sharing, brainstorming – our culture refines our focus on the quality of the documents we produce.
Deep Respect
We appreciate that good ideas can come from anywhere, and approach each project with a sense of humility. We’re eager to learn from and work together with our partners.
Creative Design Solutions
One size doesn’t fit all – exceptional architecture requires creative design and custom solutions. We are passionate about finding the precise structural solutions that ensure outstanding design.
Problem Solving Through Diversity
Unique perspectives, experiences, and passions occupy our common ground. Embracing our shared diversity results in elegant design solutions that bring value to architectural visions.
Rethinking the Wheel
At Lund Opsahl, we embrace the opportunity to rethink the wheel. From construction sequencing, to design materials and methods, we relish the opportunity to challenge existing design and construction paradigms.
Creative Project Delivery
At Lund Opsahl, Design-Build, Progressive Design Build, GC/CM, and Lean Design aren’t just buzz words, they are proven methods for design success. Our involvement brings value and spawns creative problem solving that lasts far beyond project completion.
Holistic Approach
Structure alone does not make a building. Our designs consider the drawings and objectives of the entire team of designers and consultants to ensure that no details get missed.
Singular Focus
There is a saying “life is about the journey, not the destination.” While it’s true that we enjoy our work, we always stay focused on the goal – Exceeding expectations.
Clear Communications
We are communicators who are also great engineers and modelers. Clear, direct speaking and writing contributes great value to our process.
Excellent Constructability
Our construction documents are reviewed through the lens of our construction engineering experience, ensuring clear and concise information to bidders and builders.
Our Services
Building Structural Design
Every building is more than the sum of its parts: in concert with its design, a building can be an office, a home, a center for learning, a place for healing, a podium for governing, a point of departure, and more. Understanding that purpose is the key to distilling the essential components of every project, and is the basis on which good structural engineering is founded. Independent of size and shape, regardless of materials and features, on any site, anywhere, Lund Opsahl brings a wealth of experience and a rigorous analytical approach firmly grounded on this foundation to the design and detailing of every structure.
Active members of any design team, we seek to build relationships across professions, enabling broad collaboration that helps to identify risk, align efforts, and integrate an efficient structure into the fabric of the greater design. Attentive and responsive during construction, we strive to support contractors with clear documents and cost-effective solutions to construction challenges. From the beginning of a project to the end, we work to provide owners with creative design that serves to help realize the purpose and the vision for every structure.
Seismic Retrofits and Historic Renovations, Adaptive Re-use
As much art as they are science, structural seismic renovations strike a balance between preserving historic aesthetics and subtly incorporating modern elements that improve safety and performance and extend the life span of a structure. Inadequate existing structural systems, ageing materials, and the unknowns inherent in old and undocumented buildings combine to make retrofits some of the most challenging engineering work there is. Through careful coordination with architects in evaluation and design of existing structures, along with responsiveness to and collaboration with contractors during construction, Lund Opsahl brings clarity to a complex process that yields rewarding results, whether your building is Beaux-Arts or Mid-Century Modern.
Sustainable Design
As founder of the Structural Engineer’s Association of Washington Sustainability Committee, Marjorie Lund has a reputation for championing sustainable building design. The firm she established is no different. Recognizing the demands that continued population growth and development have placed on limited resources, Lund Opsahl is dedicated to developing and implementing efficient structural systems that minimize material use and waste, pursuing cutting-edge sustainable materials like mass timber that sequester carbon, and employing alternate project delivery methods that shorten schedules and limit the environmental impact of construction.
Master Planning and Structural Studies
Major institutions like hospitals, universities, port authorities, and transit agencies evolve constantly to respond to and engage with the changing needs of their stakeholders. Without structure, this dynamism can lead to inefficiency and chaos, and a well-considered master plan can channel that energy and serve to lay the groundwork that guides decades of future growth. Through collaboration with architects and owners on feasibility studies, seismic evaluations, and campus planning, Lund Opsahl provides the clarity needed to maximize every project’s potential.
Tenant Improvements
Throughout its life, a building won’t serve just one purpose, nor only one tenant. The original sustainable design, re-use of structures over decades and centuries by generations of people has led to the unique, textured feel that makes cities such vibrant, engaging, and creative places to live and work. The process of renovating, improving, or adding onto these existing structures to house new tenants requires the thoughtful balance of creativity and the deft application of structural design to both preserve structural stability and re-imagine the space for current requirements. Well-versed in these challenges, Lund Opsahl is a proactive collaborator and a responsive designer, enabling quick turnaround of everything from small office buildouts to extensive brewery installations.
Construction Engineering
Complicated structures don’t just stand up on their own – it often takes a team of contractors, fabricators, installers, and engineers to figure out how to make unique designs come together. Working closely with the project design team, Lund Opsahl leverages decades of construction engineering experience to facilitate the efficient assembly and installation of shoring systems, underpinning, temporary rigging and bracing, tower cranes, staging, and fall protection. Successful construction engineering doesn’t just yield a completed structure; with a skilled team and the collaborative mindset Lund Opsahl brings to every project, contractors can realize faster, safer, and more efficient builds.
Special Projects
Be they movable art installations, industrial equipment platforms, pedestrian bridges, or medical equipment, special structures are just that: special. Since they usually come without solid guidelines or templates to follow, every one of these structures requires an individualized approach that Lund Opsahl’s creativity, sound engineering fundamentals, and flexible problem solving are uniquely suited to provide.
