October 27, 1999

John Zipper, Zipper Zeman Associates, Inc.

By SAM BENNETT
Journal Staff reporter

John Zipper

Firm: Zipper Zeman Associates, Inc.
Office: 19231 36th Ave. W., Lynnwood
Year founded: 1998
Staff size: 20
Recent local project: 2400 Seventh Ave.

What does your firm do?

We provide geotechnical engineering and environmental consulting services for public sector and private projects. We provide a full service approach, all the way from initial planning studies through construction. We have provided those services in five states. We have a diverse mix of engineers, geologists and environmental professionals.

Tell us about some of the projects you are most proud of.

Our most technically challenging project is the 2400 Seventh Ave. office development. We've provided design engineering for all of the geotechnical aspects of that project, which is currently under construction. There's a deep excavation, on the order of 75 feet. There are some very critical shoring walls that are being constructed as a part of that, and there is some extensive drainage, foundation design and seismic characterization issues that we worked through in the design phase.

We've had quite a bit of involvement with several major national retailers. We've provided geotechnical engineering during design as well as environmental assessment of retail sites for Wal-Mart stores, at numerous sites throughout the Northwest.

The other national retailer is Nordstrom. We've provided consultation on all of their new stores nationwide. That consultation often involves some fairly complex geotechnical issues. These projects required a rapid response on a wide variety of geotechnical conditions.

What work do you do in the area of seismic engineering?

We get involved in various aspects of seismic engineering and typically there will be a strong structural engineering component to that. The scope of our services is really focused toward providing the specific information that the structural engineer needs to provide a reasonable assessment of seismic design criteria on a structure. We've provided engineering on underpinning of foundations in the Pioneer Square area, where a lot of retrofit work has been done. We have some very experienced engineers in our office with extensive background in seismic characterization of sites, so that we can provide the base input to the structural design for seismic response.

What are some of the challenges of seismic work?

Zipper Zeman provided geotechnical engineering for buildings and infrastructure at Canyon Park business center in Bothell.

There are several challenges. One is that many of the sites that are developed are underlain by some soft soils, and that introduces some seismic challenges to more projects than we may have seen 10 or 20 years ago, in that the better quality sites already have been developed. The other is that there is new research, new information that is being developed continually in areas of seismic engineering and that information really needs to be researched, understood and incorporated into designs.

Does your firm have other specialties?

Shoring construction on 2400 Seventh Ave. will extend to 75 feet deep.

We're very involved with utility and transportation infrastructure work. Our approach to the consulting firm is to bring in a large group of very experienced engineers and geologists, and for that reason we're capable of taking on a number of challenging projects at the same time. Those projects have involved a lot of utility work, in support of expansion of utility infrastructure. We've done work for King County Metro, on some tunnel access pits. We've done work for the Alderwood Water District on a major water line crossing, under Interstate 405. And in the transportation sector we've been successful in working on numerous road widenings, retaining walls and upgrades of existing transportation networks for counties and cities.

An interesting project we're working on right now is a soil-cement mix design for a highway embankment that could potentially save a lot of time and expense in constructing a freeway interchange. Cement will be added to the fill soil as it's compacted to dry it out and increase its strength. The advantage is it that it allows compaction and construction of the embankment through the rainy season at a lesser expense than bringing in import fill.

Have you done much work with landslide evaluation and stabilization?

A very challenging project we were involved with during the spring was stabilization of an active landslide at an industrial property in the I-5 corridor. Our client first noticed in the late spring that a portion of their plant was being damaged by some active landsliding. We provided within a very short time frame a design for stabilization and we provided construction management for a contractor to come in and use some horizontal drain technology to stop the movement. We successfully avoided damage to the production facilities at the plant's property.

Previous columns:

• Robert Foley & Associates, 10-20-1999
• Jeffrey McManus, BRH Civil Engineers/Land Surveyors, 10-13-1999
• Lorne Balanko, HWA Geosciences, Inc., 10-06-1999
• Paul McCormick, AHBL, Inc., 09-29-1999
• Nolan W. Watson, McLellan & Copenhagen, 09-22-1999
• Alexander Kimball, Kimball, P.C., a division of Mulvanny, 09-15-1999
• Alice Nguyen, Davis Langdon, 09-08-1999
• Tom Holz, SCA Engineering, 09-01-1999