Structural Engineering for a Custom Home on the Rogue River, Oregon

All structures built within the 100 year flood plain are required to have their finished living areas built above the flood plain elevation. We solved this problem by setting the entire house on eight foot tall concrete walls and building passage ways for the flood water to move in and out of the structure as needed during high water events. The walls were then covered with river rock for an appealing architectural cover.

This beautiful custom home located on the Rogue River in Southern Oregon has two structural issues that needed to be solved. First, because of its close proximity to the Rogue River, it is constructed in the 100 year flood plain and issues related to that needed to be mitigated. Also, because of the beautiful views of the river, the owners wanted the side of the house facing the river to have as many doors and windows as possible - leaving not nearly enough wood shear walls to provide the required lateral stability. Ogren Engineering solved both of these issues with simple, cost effective and easy to construct solutions.

The lateral stability issue was solved with steel columns that are bolted to the foundation and then connected to the roof diaphragm. Steel moment frames were used where the columns didn't have enough capacity.  Because the steel columns are less expensive than moment frames, columns were used where possible and moment frames were specified only where necessary.