Lights, communications, heating, air conditioning, running water, security, and fresh air. The best engineering is the kind you never notice.
Integrated Engineering Services
CSHQA provides mechanical, electrical, plumbing, and civil engineering as both a fully integrated partner to our architecture and interior design studios and as a standalone service. Clients engage CSHQA engineers directly for system upgrades, infrastructure assessments, and phased renovations — bringing the same design thinking and technical depth to every project, whether it starts with a blank page or an existing building.
Our engineers work on a range of projects, from straightforward tenant improvements to phased renovations in fully operational facilities.
Built to Perform
Engineering is measured against how a building performs over time, not just how it scores at ribbon-cutting. That means modeling systems before they’re built, specifying materials that hold up, and designing for energy and water efficiency from the first set of drawings.
The CSHQA Boise office demonstrates what that approach produces in practice. An adaptive reuse of a 60-year-old warehouse, the building’s engineering scope included a radiant heating and cooling system, high-efficiency lighting and controls, efficient air handling, and low-flow water fixtures — delivering measurable performance gains at a cost that made sense for the project.
Complex Problem Solving
Some of the most demanding engineering work happens in buildings that can’t stop operating. During the Saint Alphonsus Emergency/Trauma Center renovation and addition, CSHQA engineers replaced more than 30 gas and utility systems across multiple phases while the department remained fully operational for 22 months of construction. No outages. No downtime.
Current Practice
Meeting code requirements is the floor, not the ceiling. CSHQA mechanical engineers have earned recognition for their geothermal and heat-recovery design. Electrical engineers apply current LED and lighting control technologies to deliver energy-efficient, aesthetically pleasing designs. CSHQA civil engineers don’t just solve stormwater and permeable paver challenges in the field — they document and share what works.
