City of Brownsville Multi-Purpose Safe Room

Project Description

A joint venture between the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the City of Brownsville (COB), this community safe room is intended to provide a facility that can shelter over 800 individuals during a hurricane or tornado storm event. The building’s unique dome structure is designed to resist a maximum wind gust of 200 miles per hour. The dome roof structure employs an innovative concrete thin-shell construction method in which the air form roofing membrane is inflated to allow the foam roofing insulation, steel reinforcement and shotcrete to be applied and installed from below the roof membrane. When not being used as a safe room, the building serves as a city parks and recreation gymnasium equipped with a regulation basketball court, retractable bleachers, showers and restroom facilities.

Project Details

Size: 23,000 sf
Cost of Construction: $5.3 Million
Location: Brownsville, Texas
Architect: GMS Architects

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