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Michael Winstanley Architects & Planners Completes Modernization of U S Navy “Top Gun” Test Pilot Facility


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ALEXANDRIA, VA – Michael Winstanley Architects & Planners is pleased to announce the completion of the two-year modernization of historic Hangar 110 at Patuxent River Naval Air Station in Cedar Point, Maryland. 
 
It was one of the largest such structures built in the United States up to that point and is eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places. The complex consists of two aircraft hangar bays flanked by offices and shops that support the Navy’s test pilot school.  Still an active naval facility, the Hangar now serves to house an aeronautical menagerie of glider, propeller-driven and jet-powered aircraft of both fixed and rotary wing types.  However, the most interesting part of its history are the graduates of the school that include illustrious alumni with “The Right Stuff”:  Alan Shepard, John Glenn, and Walter Shirra among others.
 
Hangar 110 is located in the heart of the Patuxent River Naval Air Station and was one of the first structures built at the base.  It was built in 1942 with a new and relatively unproven type of construction.  The innovative ZD-type concrete hangar was a poured-in-place, thin-shell concrete construction system poured over massive forms that were moved on rails. Based largely on the success of the construction at Pax River, this type of construction was published in a contemporary engineering journal and became a widely accepted construction technique.  Construction was fast and the average construction time from beginning to end was just six months, seventeen days.

“Unlike the speed of the original construction, this was a long and complicated assignment; and I am very pleased with the final restoration of Hangar 110,” says George Eisenberger AIA LEED AP.  “During the project we often spoke about all the interesting people that have used the hangar over the years.”
 
Patuxent Naval Air Station was established in 1941 spurred predominantly by events of WWII.  A swift consolidation effort replaced farming operations at Cedar Point with flight test operations resulting in the establishment of “The most needed station in the Navy,” according to Rear Admiral John S. McCain then chief of the Navy’s Bureau of Aeronautics – a transition that took place within a year of ground-breaking. 
 
Among some of the tasks involved was the reconstruction of the roadside lean-to façade with new historically-correct fenestration that also meets current antiterrorism/force protection requirements; roof replacement; renovations of the interiors of the shops and offices; renovation of the hangar interiors to include new flooring, overhead heating, lighting and fire protection systems; and, most significantly, retrofitting a new trenched foam fire protection system for the high-value aircraft housed within.
 
Michael Winstanley Architects & Planners is an architecture, planning and interior design firm located in the metropolitan Washington area.  Current assignments for the firm include the restoration work at Union Station in Washington, DC; a 350-bed residence hall at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, KY; the new headquarters for the Helicopter Association International in Alexandria, VA; and the firm has just completed the new 6-star Capella Hotel in Georgetown.
 
The firm is also a registered small business enterprise.
Photos – jessicamarcotte.com



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 architecture
 Winstanley
 Hangar
 Patuxent
 Eisenberger


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