Good afternoon. Welcome to PCI's webinar series. Today's presentation is How Precast Builds Architectural Precast Versatility. I'm Royce Covington, Manager of Member Services at PCI, and I'll be your moderator for this session. Before I turn the controls over to our presenters for today, I have a few introductory items to note. Earlier today, we sent an email to all registered attendees with handouts of today's presentation. The email contained a webinar attendance sign-in sheet, a guide to downloading your Certificate of Continuing Education, and a PDF of today's presentation. The handouts are also available now and can be found in the Handouts section located near the bottom of your GoToWebinar toolbox. If there are multiple listeners at your location, please circulate the attendance sheet and send the completed sign-in sheet back to PCI per the instructions on the form. The attendance sheet is only for use at locations with multiple listeners on the line. 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We need your email address to get your certificate for this course. Our presenters for today are Randy Wilson, Director of Architectural Precast Systems at PCI and Doug Florey, Director of Architectural Systems at Gate Precast in Oxford, North Carolina. Mr. Florey has 42 years experience in the precast industry with extensive experience in consulting with design construction professionals. I'll now turn the controls over so that we can begin our presentation. Thank you, Royce. This is Randy Wilson, and I want to go over the course description and the learning objectives real quick, and then we'll dive right into the program. Today's course description will be describing the types and applications of architectural precast concrete with emphasis on the different types of aesthetic versatility precast concrete offers. In our learning objectives, we'll define what architectural precast concrete is, we'll understand the different colored surface textures that can be used, and then we'll the different colored surface textures and sculptural options available. We'll be using some project examples to kind of show how you can use that versatility, and then we will talk a little bit about some connection details as we go along. So hopefully, if there's anything that you may have a question about, hopefully we'll be able to answer those questions. But if you think of a question, go ahead and put it in the chat box, and we'll try to answer as many questions as we can at the end of the presentation. When we don't get answered by the end of the presentation, we'll make sure we reach back out to you as long as we have your email address. So let's start by saying, asking the question, what is architectural precast concrete? Well, architectural precast concrete is concrete products produced in a manufacturing facility, so it's prefabricated products shipped to the job site, installed on the project, on your project with the crane, and then it becomes the aesthetic feature of your project. So architectural precast is something that can be manufactured off-site in a mass production type of a process, and it can give you just about any architectural expressions you want. So you'll see in the presentation how we, precast concrete producers, are able to make a master mold. That master mold can be any shape whatsoever. It is a custom-made mold for your project, the shape, the size, and the architectural features within, and then it can be produced 20, 30, 40 times in consecutive days, and that's, therefore, it becomes a very economical solution to enclose any type of precast concrete structure. So precast concrete panels can be either non-load-bearing cladding panels, can just be the facade, or it can be part of your structural building frame, or it can just be small decorative items. Think about, you know, coping, banding, and trim type of products. So again, think of your building as a complete system of products. So as a facade, precast concrete can be the enclosure of your system, and your panels can be broken up in any size or shape that fits your architectural need. The precast panels can also be pre-glazed, which means the windows and the window frames can be put in the precast panel at the precast concrete manufacturer site and shipped to the building, installed with the crane onto your structure, and only thing left to do is caulk the facade, and you're ready to go. Architectural precast can be part of your total precast system. Instead of hanging the precast panels onto a structural steel frame or a cast-in-place frame, it could actually be part of the complete structure. We like to say, give us a foundation, we'll build you a building, and the architectural precast products can be incorporated within the building, whether it be just the exterior facade, or it could be your stair towers, or it could be sheer walls. In any of those conditions, you can finish the materials inside and outside, and therefore you can get rid of perimeter columns, you can get rid of some interior finishes, and you can run some of your electrical right in the middle of the precast concrete panels. So, kind of stealing some of my own thunder there, the structural architectural panels can be produced with most any color, form, and texture. Again, they can be your complete stair tower, and you can expose those materials so that you don't have to put any interior finish. They could be a sheer wall, or they could be the exterior structure and reduce the number of columns you may have around the perimeter. You can also insulate the precast concrete panels, but when you embed insulation into a precast concrete panel, it becomes a single white facade material. Kind of think about through wall block, but you actually can have continuous insulation that meets the continuous insulation code requirement. It also can, the inside face of the panel can also serve as the inside face of your project. Therefore, you won't need any type of interior finish. And to decide exactly what some of these features that I've already explained, and some of the things Doug will talk about, is call your local precast producer. Every precast producer has one, and that's a sales consultant, estimating staff, and what they'll do is they will sit down with you, and they'll perform a precast feasibility study. They'll look at your structure, you'll discuss what your requirements are, what your needs are, what your wants are, and they'll tell you flat out if precast is a good option, and where precast can add value to your project. They'll provide a panel layout, they will talk about how panels are joined together, they'll talk about connection schemes, connection locations, they'll work with you on how to interface precast with other materials, they'll provide you a color and texture samples, typically we start with 12 by 12 samples until they get the color just right, and then they'll also look at your site logistics and determine where's the best place to put trucks and where to put the crane, where we need to move a crane around the site, whether a tower crane would be required, what kind of maximum weights can we have with the tower crane, so there's a lot of little points of light that an architectural precast producer can help you with, and they're happy to do it. It's just a matter of picking up the phone and giving them a call, and they'd be happy to work with you. So before I turn the controls over to Doug, what I want to do is walk through a little bit about the PCI and the Architectural Certification Program. So PCI was founded in 1954. We are the technical institute for the precast concrete industry. So what does that mean? The main thing it means is that we are the keepers of the body of knowledge. We develop, maintain, and disseminate the body of knowledge for the design, fabrication, and construction of precast concrete structures and systems, and we are now in a multi-year process converting a lot of our knowledge into code standards. We've already developed a couple of ANSI standards for precast concrete, and we are developing a building code for precast concrete, and as most of you know, it takes years to make all this happen, so we are going to continue working on integrating precast concrete and all the building codes moving forward. So why is that important to you? Well, number one is that PCI certification is recognized by the leading, widely specified quality assurance programs in the construction industry. Whether it's master specs or it's government entities, they all recognize PCI as the governing body for precast concrete. So the benefits to you primarily is that it assures what is designed is actually going to get built. It reduces your risk, and we all want to be risk adverse, so by specifying a PCI certified plant, you know that that PCI producer has gone through a third-party auditing process to ensure they follow all of the processes required to manufacture quality precast concrete products. And so where does all this body of knowledge reside? Well, it resides in several manuals, but it all starts with our PCI M&L 120 design handbook. This book is all-encompassing, whether it be transportation products, structural products, commercial, or architectural, it all resides in our M&L 120 design handbook. Specific to architectural precast is we have the M&L 122 manual, and that's really a really good deep dive into all things architectural precast concrete. It's what we refer to as precast concrete specialist when it comes to all the technical information you may need to know to specify and design architectural precast. The next set of documents is the quality control manuals. This is the information that all of our plants have to abide by to ensure that they are audited and they pass their certification through the auditing process. M&L 116 is our quality control manual for structural precast concrete products, 117 is for architectural precast concrete products, and 135 is a crowd favorite, it's our manual on tolerances for precast concrete. So these are the manuals that we refer to on a daily basis in every precast concrete plant. And so what are the different certification program certification categories? We have different certification categories based on the products that that specific manufacturer produces. You can imagine that a bridge producer would be judged upon something different than architectural precast. It takes a different process to make a bridge beam or a bridge girder than it does to make an architectural panel, therefore we have different manuals that are that align with the individual products that a producer produces. So category A is what we're going to focus on because A is for the architectural precast concrete categories, we're really original like that. So architectural precast is broken down into five main categories. We'll kind of start at the top of this list, the AD categories for high quality products that meet our manual 116 qualifications. Those are primarily structural precast concrete products, those are products that are going to be manufactured to actually support other loads. Once you start getting into facade type panels then you move into that 117 manual and then that's where the AC category comes into play. You start to create a level of detail and finish in the precast concrete products. AB category is when you have a greater emphasis on shape and alignment and tolerances and then AA is heightened tolerances. It's when you start to develop projects that have a lot of shape complexity and you have to have a lot of architectural details that align with each other. The final category is AT is the small products which are coping, trim, banding, some of the small stuff you might see that might be incorporated into like a masonry facade. All of this information is housed in our PCI architectural certification program supplemental requirements. It's a very detailed book. It's what all the precast producers have to follow and you can find that at pci.org. One of the added requirements to this new program, new meaning two to three years old compared to 60 years old, is the requirement for a PCI certified erector. If you are an AC, AB, or AA producer and you specify an AA, AB, or AC producer for your project, one of their requirements is they must use a certified erector. A certified erector must follow all the processes and procedures as outlined in the manual 127. It's very important that you look at this certification program through our master guide specs. We have master guide specs on our website at pci.org. They're pretty easy to find. If you scroll to the bottom of the page, we have a line that says specifications. Then when you read through those, you'll notice where all of this body of knowledge resides, how to specify it, and how to ensure that you're going to get a PCI certified plant to price your project. To summarize, we are the technical institute for the precast concrete industry. Architectural precast refers to any precast concrete components that contribute to architectural form and the finished effect of the structure. These components can be part of the structural building frame. It can carry gravity load, wind, seismic, and other loads. They can be non-load-bearing cladding or small decorative accent units. They can be conventionally reinforced or pre-stressed or a combination of both. So a lot of versatility in how to use the products, how the products are made. Now I'm going to turn it over to Doug. He's going to talk about the surface aesthetics and sculptural treatments of architectural precast concrete. All right. Thank you, Randy, and I appreciate the time that everyone has taken with us here today. You're going to allow me to show my screen, Randy? You can see your screen, Doug. What we did, but it just, there we go. Okay, so I need to get down to the slide where you took off. Yes, sir. All right, hang on a second. I think I'm right there. All right. Surface aesthetics and sculptural treatments. As you know, with architectural precast, there are somewhat unlimited aesthetic options. Typically, the color is achieved by a combination of the white or gray cement and the selection of the aggregates. Finishes, on the other hand, can vary depending on the process that we use to achieve that finish. We'll talk about that in just a second. Shape, customizable to fit any design. This is one of the unique features of this product is that the geometry that you create because of your design is that geometry is something that then we form through the use of those custom forms to sort of honor the design intent. And we oftentimes use a combination of all of these features to achieve that design intent. Where do we start? Obviously, early on in the process, when you are conceptualizing and design, you're going to have questions about color and texture. And the image on the lower left here is at a precast plant, and that's a display of color and texture samples at that particular precast plant. It is by no means a limit to what that plant can do, but it's a pretty broad representation of some of the finishes that are available. You can also refer to the PCI's Architectural Precast Concrete Color and Texture Selection Guide. This is available in a hard copy. It's also available online at pci.org. But this is a great place to start. Within this manual are a couple hundred images of different color and texture pieces of precast concrete. And it's not unusual for a designer to pull this manual out and call someone like myself and say, hey, I'm looking at image 122, but I'd like it a little darker or a little lighter. And then the local precaster can produce a sample to that size. Obviously, during this process, we typically start 12 by 12 samples, and then maybe we go with larger samples to get a better representation of the total area. And then perhaps we produce a set of range samples, which could indicate to you the range of colors and textures that you could expect from that particular mix design. And then the image all the way on the right is a good example of a mock-up that eventually we get to confirm to you, you know, confirm your expectations for the job. Concrete mixes, if you look at the left image there, that's a pretty simple one. You've got a gray cement, you've got a coarse aggregate, and you've got a fine aggregate. And that resulted in that color. In the middle image, you have a dark, you probably have a combination of white cement and gray cement, perhaps, or perhaps that's all white cement. And then you have a black fine aggregate, and you have a multicolored coarse aggregate. And then on the image on the right, you have those same ingredients, but you have introduced some pigmentation to enhance the color. And I would like to point out to you, these images in the middle and to the right, that particularly this one in the middle, you can see the significant amount of contrast between the white and then the sort of speckled finish, but that was accomplished with the exact same mix design. The exact same ingredients are in that sample. It's just that on the left, the whiter was finished not nearly as deep, and on the right, it was finished deeper to expose that aggregate. And that's an important efficiency concept to keep in mind. If you have a design that requires contrast, and we can accomplish it by using one mix design, then there are cost efficiencies there. And mixtures, fine and coarse aggregates, I don't want to say there's an unlimited supply, but there's a very broad range of supply of whatever mother nature has created. And it does vary in size based on the finish and the exposure. Most of the concrete plants, precast concrete plants around the country have a wide range of locally sourced aggregates that they can use to achieve these finishes. And the mention of locally sourced aggregates is a nod to sustainability and the fact that we can get these raw ingredients from a local source and cut down on some of the embodied carbon effect. Also pigments, wide range that can help you accomplish a wide range of colors in your finished product. I would point out that there is a limit to the amount of pigment that you can put in in a mix design before it starts to affect the strength of the concrete. But nevertheless, there's a wide range of colors that can be accomplished by the introduction of this pigment. Finishes, in the center here are the finishes typically that we offered you over the last 50 years. And the one on the top, sandblasted, ironically, we're transitioning away from calling that sandblasted, the reason being that OSHA took our sand away from us because of the silica dust concern. And we're now blasting with a fabricated glass bead. So you may see sandblasted, that term changed to the term blasted going forward. Retarder finish in the middle, the reason that's called retarded finish is because a chemical is painted on the form before the concrete is poured. And that chemical prevents the surface layer of concrete from setting up or curing. And then it's high pressure washed off and it exposes that aggregate. So a retarder or exposed aggregate finish is another one. And then acid etch, until recently, acid etch was sort of the smoothest finish that we provided. And it just removed the very surface layer. More recently, there's been the introduction of these polished or terrazzo finishes in architectural precast. And we're seeing that gain a lot of popularity currently. Again, the acid etch finish, as I mentioned, it's just a mild muriatic or even citric acid that's applied. And think of it sort of as a super cleaning. This image on the right is actually an architectural precast job that was done to complement an adjacent metal panel building. It was very effective. Abrasive blasts can occur at several different levels. The bottom image on the left is a light blast. The medium or the center image is a medium blast that adds a little bit more texture. And then the top is a deep blast where we're actually exposing the aggregate. I would caution you a little bit that when you're blasting aggregate, you can change the appearance of the aggregate because that blasting is going to etch it a little bit. You may think of a scratch on your windshield. But if you're holding a handful of aggregate that you really like, blasting, it may change the appearance of that aggregate a little bit. So be aware of that. And then this is an example that gentleman in the upper left hand there, he's doing that high pressure washing to remove that retarding chemical and actually expose the aggregate. And of course, we have a number of designs where there are a combination of finishes. You can see the areas of this that was accomplished by exposing or retarding the curing. And you can also see the areas that received a blasted finish. Incidentally, these two sort of pink or brown are the exact same mixed design. I mentioned earlier some contrast that can receive with one mixed design but two different finishes. And this sort of white pillar in the middle has an acid wash. And then the travertine finish down here was actually accomplished with a form lotter. Glass aggregates is something that has gained some popularity in recent years where we can add unique colors to the architectural precast by introducing glass as part of the aggregate. One of the things that we have to be a little bit concerned about here is the alkali silica reaction. There can be a reaction between cement and glass that could be problematic for precast. We do have the ability to test the glass to see if that's going to be a concern. But if you have a design and you're going to consider the use of glass, there are some steps that need to be taken to ensure the performance of that glass as an aggregate. Again, the use of recycled glass in some of these applications I think is another nod to sustainability. The polishing finish that I mentioned earlier, this is the terrazzo or polished effect. In recent years, the precast industry has sort of been through the learning curve on this and providing a terrazzo finish on architectural precast has become much more economical as we have come to understand the means and methods. The way that it is polished is exactly like terrazzo is done on a floor or exactly like one of those large floor polishing machines that maybe you've seen somewhere. And that machine rides on top of these flat surfaces. And as long as the surface to be polished is flat, we're able to maintain some of those efficiencies, some of those economies. It is possible to polish shapes. It is possible to polish bullnose and things like that, but that'll be done by hand and the cost will go up a little bit. On this image on the left, you can see this was a Nordstrom store. And you can imagine that that polishing machine was able to ride right on top of these proud flat surfaces and provide that polished finish. And then the reveals just received the acid wash finish because it was unlikely that the standard polishing machine couldn't get down in those reveals and it wasn't required to do them or necessary to do them by hand. And the contrast is exactly what the designer was looking for. I think another unique aspect of the polished finish is that it allows us to give you some very sharp corners and edges. Typically when this piece of precast is in the form, that right in that corner, there's a little bead of caulk in the form to prevent cement paste from leaking out. That little bead of caulk is gonna dull this corner a little bit, but as we polish it, we in effect sharpen the corner. So polishing may have the advantage of being able to give you some very crisp lines. This is a Sir David Chipperfield project, up at Bryant Park in New York City. And all of the flat surfaces of all of these pieces did receive that terrazzo or the polished finish. The image in the lower left that shows the Bryant, I wish there was something in that for scale because one of the unique things about this project is the relatively large size of aggregate. These larger pieces of aggregate in here are up to two and a half inches. So it's a larger aggregate that we've seen typically. We were able to do that because we were able to verify and understand the characteristics of that particular aggregate. And it did polish very well and maintain the strength of the concrete. Another example, Florida International University with a polished finish on these fins or sun shading elements. And this was actually polished at a lower level. Polishing can occur as burnishing and then it can also occur if you polish deeper to actually polish the aggregate and expose the aggregate. But we lump burnishing and polishing all into one category. Shapes and reveals and production. One of the things that you need to keep in mind is whatever shape you invent, whatever shape you come up with, that shapes has to be able to come out of the form after that concrete is cured. So we can't trap any elements of that shape in the form. Typically that means that those shapes must have some sort of draft to them that allows that piece of concrete to come out of the form. Typically it's a one in eight ratio that allows the panel to be separated without form disassembly. Now this is a good example of what reveals can do. You know, in the case of this Nordstrom flagship store, it's 57th Street up in New York City. And there were a lot of deep reveals and a lot of expression to simulate the actual marble, 100-year-old marble that stayed in place above this reconstruction. Also on the right-hand corner, these are actually large panels, about 10 foot tall, about 24 feet long, but there's, excuse me, segmented reveals in them to give a pattern. Same for the Horseshoe Casino there in Baltimore. Form liners, I think that the most that needs to be said about form liners is that there are a number of form liner companies out there, and all of those companies have a catalog of a wide range of textures that are available with form liners. One thing to keep in mind is that oftentimes the form liners are limited on the size of the form liner that can be made, and that may have an effect on your design as well. You need to look for the texture that you're considering, whatever it is, and then collaborate with a form liner company to determine if that form liner is available in a size that's gonna fit the panel that you're thinking of. You know, without that, you may be introducing some joints or some lines in the panel where the separate pieces of form liner have to be used. And as I said before, there's a multitude of finishes that are available with form liners. This center picture down on the bottom is sort of a basket weave, and obviously all of these form liners are very effective if you have a large area of flat surface and you need to add some texture or some personality to it. There's lots of ways to do it with a number of commercially available off-the-shelf form liners. This is unique in that what this picture is showing here is a instance where the precast concrete manufacturer actually created their own form liner for this piece. And many of our precast concrete manufacturers have the ability in their plant to create their own form liners. Typically, they produce a master mold and they pour an elastomeric or a rubber compound into that mold to create the negative from which your precast is produced. This is a unique one that I like to share with you. This is actually part of the Perot Museum in Dallas, Texas. And I think I have another image of it, yeah. The Thomas Maine's inspiration for these horizontal striations was actually a hike that he took into some canyon in the Southwest where he saw these horizontal striations of rock. And when the precast fabricator first looked at that, looked at this with a morphosis, they noticed that there were a lot of these elements at the bottom of the building. And then as you went up the building, there were fewer of them. When you got to the top of the building, there were none of them. So the precast manufacturer looked at this and said, well, that is a real forming challenge because it looks like this panel is different from this panel is different from this panel is different from that panel. And that's gonna create a lot of custom one-off panelization. The way the precast fabricator resolved that is with producing their own form liner in the plant. But the genius of it was that these individual pieces were interchangeable. So you could produce one big master form. You could put these pieces of rubber in there, pour the panel today, strip that panel tomorrow, and then remove or rearrange these pieces of rubber to produce the next panel, which was different. Now we have termed that something called modular forming where we're able to have one master form and then we can vary the texture or the expression by being able to move around modules within that one form. It's very effective cost-wise and schedule-wise. Drip inlay or embedding items in architectural precast has been occurring for gosh, you know, as long as I can remember, and I've been doing it over 40 years. One of the things that I would encourage you, one of the resources that I would encourage you to use is the PCI design manual for brick inlay and the information that's in there. I guess about 15 years ago, PCI developed a standard for how these clay products have to perform if we're going to pour them into architectural precast. And those standards include things like dimensional tolerance, modulus of rupture, 300 freeze-thaw cycles, chemical resistance, efflorescence resistance, and in those last 15 years, all of the brick companies have come on board and supply or provide a wide range of thin brick that meet that PCI standard. There is a tendency in some markets in this country to take a full-size brick and cut the face off of it and call that a soap and then cast that into architectural precast. And there's, I believe, a misunderstanding that that is a better product than these thin brick. But one of the examples of how the standard will serve you well, excuse me, is that these thin brick cannot exceed a water absorption rate of about 6%. And a full bed-depth brick may have water absorption of up to about 14%. That significantly affects those freeze-thaw cycles. So again, using a PCI-certified thin brick would always be recommended by a precast producer. And there are an unlimited, almost unlimited range of size, colors, and textures of thin brick. And they come in Norman modular utility and there are special corners and Rolox sills that can meet just about any design requirement. When we first started supplying thin brick in architectural precast, quite frankly, the thin brick was perfect, the form liner was perfect, and the resulting panel looked perfect and it didn't look a whole lot like a hand-laid masonry wall. You can see in this image now in the lower left that we now have these tumbled brick that are available. We also have a form liner process that allows us to change the mortar joint. If you want a raked joint or whatever you want in the mortar joint, that's available with the fabrication of the form liner. And then of course, that form liner is also produced according to whatever brick pattern that you want. If you want a running bond or if you wanted a soldier row in the middle of this. And you can see on this particular panel down at the end there are the L-shaped where this panel is gonna have a return to a window. Terracotta, you know, same information as the conventional architectural precast. I mean, excuse me, the same information as the thin brick cast in to architectural precast. Terracotta, there is now a PCI standard for terracotta being cast into architectural precast. And it has the same sort of standards for water absorption, dimensional tolerance, free stall, resistance, and all of those things. So we should source a, Terry, if it's gonna be cast into architectural precast, we should source a terracotta that meets that PCI standard. Let the video run on the lower right-hand corner down here. You see these guys losing their minds with their shop tickets, placing the terracotta according to the shop ticket specified color pattern. And that's pretty typical of a lot of these terracotta jobs. And you can see at McNeese State University that is that particular panel. And it does have a consistently inconsistent pattern to the placement of the terracotta. Natural stone, we do a lot of projects where we're actually casting slate or granite into architectural precast. These gentlemen here are placing a piece of limestone into the form. That piece of limestone is pre-drilled. You'll see these little black dots here. Those are holes that are gonna receive this anchor. It's gonna be epoxied into those holes and then a slip sheet to provide for the differential movement between the stone and the actual concrete. and then the precast concrete is poured on the back, and the result is that you get the advantages of prefabrication and with an actual natural stone finish. So that's somewhat popular. Graphically imaged concrete is another thing that we've been involved with in recent years. This is the ability to take an image and actually recreate it on a piece of architectural precast concrete. This is done with a big piece of retarder paper that is produced with that image that you supply to us, and what you're seeing here is the coarse aggregate that's a little bit deeper in the panel has been exposed to provide the dark image. The coarse aggregate is black, the cement was white, the sand was white, but what provides the darker textures in these images is that it's just been exposed to the depth that you're seeing, that black aggregate. There is no stain, there's no paint on these. It is retarded and exposed to that image, and that can be recreated with whatever image you have. Lettering, also real common in architectural precast business. A lot of the architectural precast producers have now invested in 5-axis CNC machines, and as you probably know, these machines can create just about any shape and with a very high degree of accuracy. Lettering and other images through the use of 5-axis CNC machines is common. Okay, endless options. There are a couple of images here that I'd like to share with you. In the lower left-hand corner is a St. George Parish in Louisiana project where the original design called for hand-laid brick and hand-laid limestone, and they had a significant budget challenge, and in collaboration with the precaster, it was converted to simulated limestone, thin brick cast in, and there were four of these arch entrances on this church, and that precast then was designed to be self-supporting, as was the bell tower. So it was architectural precast that was also performing a structural function, and it limited, significantly reduced the amount of steel structure and brought the job back under budget. This image right here, the Nordstrom, that's the project I showed you earlier up in New York City, an old Nordstrom flagship store. The building was built over 100 years ago with a Vermont marble. In the 70s, they demolished the first two floors and replaced it with a glass curtain wall. The landmark preservation folks in New York City wanted to return it to its previous original design. Unfortunately, the marble quarry had been closed for about 70 years, and we had to create an architectural precast that matched that Vermont, and we were able to do that with color, with texture, and with actually introducing this veinage. It's right at the south end of Central Park, I think it's 57th Street, and if you have an opportunity to go up and look at that, it's pretty impressive. All right, let's talk about some cost factors. If none of you have ever visited an architectural precast concrete plant, I would strongly encourage you to make that trip, and what you will see when you get to an architectural precast plant is you'll see one of the last industries in this country that is fabricating from raw materials, mostly mined in this country, and creating a product from scratch. That's not just common, not that common in this country anymore, and when you visit that plant, what you're going to see is a significant investment in capital overhead. These large environmentally controlled plants with computerized batch systems and cranes and in a workforce of 100-150 people represent significant overhead. That means when you produce a piece of precast in that plant, that piece of precast has to recapture some or pay for some of that overhead. Generally, the larger the panel, then the unit price goes down. If we run a little tiny piece of precast through a big plant and try to capture the appropriate amount of overhead in that small piece, the price could get a little bit crazy. Generally, flat panels are more efficient, and we're always looking for the opportunity for our form cost to be amortized over multiple castings. We love to get 30, 40, 50 castings per form. Gray cement, almost exclusively for structural precast concrete, gray and white cement may be blended in architectural precast to help lower the cost, and as I mentioned earlier, local aggregates, all precast manufacturers have a pretty significant supply of local aggregates that can be used. It is not uncommon on an architectural precast project, if the panel is, say, six inches thick, that the first two inches is the more expensive architectural precast mix design for that finish, and then it may be backed up with plain gray cement. You will sometimes hear that referred to as the face mix and the backup mix, but again, that allows us to produce that panel and limit the cost of some of those more expensive ingredients. Pigmentation dosage, often used to create shades, it generally takes a pretty significant amount of pigment to cause a color change and a consistent color change, and high doses have to be limited. As I mentioned earlier, there's a point at which that pigmentation and high dosage can start to affect the strength of the concrete, so you would want to work with your precaster during that sampling process to sort of dial in those ingredients and their relationship to each other. Form liners, as we mentioned earlier, number of form liners available to create different textures within a panel, that's generally less expensive. We can limit that form liner. Remember, those form liner companies have limitations on the size of form liner they can make, so if we have a large surface and we want an accent band with a form liner, that's a very effective way to get some contrast or to add some personality to that texture at an efficient and economical way. Surface finish, acid etching or light sandblasting normally is used when a white cement base is required for color uniformity. If you start to apply some of these textured finishes to something that has some gray cement in it, there may be some irregularity. And then the actual mix design and the finish complexity, if we can work through you again through that sampling process to dial in on the ingredients in that mix that are the most economical and the most efficient and meet the design requirements, attain the strengths that are necessary, then that will be heading us towards an economical solution. Weighing the versatility versus the cost, I like to share this slide and I like to use it as an illustration about collaboration. The red arrow in the top is a typical project delivery method, design, bid, build, where you guys are working on schematics for some period of time and you're working on or DDs and SDs and at some point you get CDs and the job goes out for bid. And then at that time, a precast manufacturer is selected. And at that time, that precast manufacturer is going to start a lot of conversation with you, the designer. For instance, one of the RFIs might be, hey, the construction document showed a panel joint here, but there's no structure there to attach to, so we need to move the panel joint. Things like that happen. And then once all of those questions are answered, then the shop drawings are produced by the precast manufacturer, submitted for approval, and the construction starts. The lower arrow represents the collaborative design approach. And we have a number of precast manufacturers that are now participating in design assist agreements with owners, where the precast concrete manufacturer is contractually engaged very early in the process. And that precast concrete manufacturer sits with the architect for months during all of the the DD and SD, the result being that when the drawings come out, all of these questions up here have been answered. We know what the panelization is, we know where the connections are, we know what the color texture finish is, we probably even have had discussions about job site logistics. Then we go into drawings and we go into construction, and that process, that collaborative approach, engaging the precast manufacturer very early in the process, is saving an average of about 90 to 120 days from the precast concrete manufacturing schedule. All right, I have a case study here to look at quickly. This will be for the Domino Sugar Factory in Brooklyn, New York. This was just across the East River from Manhattan. It is on the site of this, the old Domino Sugar Factory. And this was Site A. There will be four buildings on this site, including an extensive renovation of the sugar factory, which is a pretty cool project if you're ever up there. But Domino Site A, shown here conceptually on the left, you had the podium, which was primarily retail, you had this little short, shorter tower, which was commercial, and then the sort of inverted L was all residential. And Cook Fox's inspiration for this design was the white, sparkly, faceted nature of sugar. They wanted to honor that. Their facade study and their sun shading study yielded different geometry on different elevations of the building. You can see on the south facade, the horizontal units were proud of the vertical units. On the north facade, the vertical units were proud of the horizontal units. And then on the east and west, the horizontal and vertical units were all in the same plane. And this image to the right here shows you a typical panel that is going to be polished on the proud flat surfaces. It's going to have a light sand, light acid wash finish on the returns. The light acid wash finish on the returns has the texture of a sugar cube. Imagine that. And then this geometry met that faceted design that they were talking about. During that design assist collaborative process, GATE, along with a grant from PCI, was able to collaborate with the Oak Ridge National Laboratory to have components of these forms actually 3D printed. This was done with a high degree of accuracy and the resulting material was much more durable than the conventional wooden forms. This is the unit or the box that created that shape in the window. And I can show that best to you right here in this image in the lower half. This is a good image of a typical panel. This panel is approximately 10 feet tall and about 24 feet long. And you'll see that it has three window openings in it. You see the first window opening is thick at the bottom and sort of thin and sloped at the top. And then the second window opening is thick at the top and thin and sloped at the bottom. And then the third window opening matches the first window opening. So we would call this an ABA. But all over the building, there were ABAs and ABBs and BBAs and AAAs and BBBs, every combination of that. So during that design assist process, the cook fox was asked if that opening can be created with a box and if we can take that box and just rotate it 180 degrees and create that opening, then what have we accomplished? We've accomplished that modular forming concept that I talked about. We can move these boxes around wherever they needed to be for an ABB or an ABA or whatever the concept was. And that significantly improved the efficiency of producing these pieces. These boxes also, I mentioned, were out of a very durable material that allowed us to put the air vibrators directly on the form, on that material. Typically in architectural precasts, the necessary to remove bug holes are on the table itself, not on the form. A traditional wood forming would not stand up to repeated vibration. But this material is so durable that those vibrators were able to be placed directly on that forming material. And that resulted in these beautiful deep, you know, up to 21 inch deep returns with a very consistent finish. Another unique thing about this whole process that I believe was the first time in North America is the precaster produced as part of that contractual engagement for design assist had to produce the Revit model for the precast on that building. And that Revit model, through some software called Toolpath and Slicer, spoke directly to the 3D printer to create these pieces. Now in the old days, like five years ago, right, a technician or a drafter would have produced a ticket and handed it to a carpenter to build that form. In this case, the Revit model told the 3D printer what we needed and it was done. Very high level of accuracy. The 40th one was exactly like the first one. Unitization or pre-installing windows is also gaining popularity in the architectural precast market. You know, this is the process of actually installing the windows at the precaster's plant. You can imagine the cost of installing a window, say, in Oxford North Carolina compared to the cost of installing a window in Brooklyn, New York. We also believe that in this sort of controlled environment setting, perhaps the caulking of the window can be done with a high level of quality and quality assurance. This image here shows that polished proud flat surfaces on this project and then the acid wash returning. And there were on this job, there were, you can see that one of those elevations where the horizontal and vertical elements are in the same plane, but then when you go around to that other elevation, the horizontal units are proud of the vertical units. This project had 3,000 windows, 1,600 panels, and one window was broken during the process. I will point out to you that on these corners are a little bit unique in that this is one L-shaped piece of precast on the corner. And we were a little bit uncomfortable pre-glazing that at our plant and shipping it, so these units on two corners of the building were delivered to the job site and then at the job site the glazing was done and then they were picked up and put on the building. But everything else was pre-glazed in the plant. That is it. Randy, you want to open it for questions? Yeah, Doug, I'm blaming Royce for that. Okay. Yeah, no, great job, Doug. We did have a number of questions that came through and I answered them as they appeared on the screen. So, because we are running up right up against time, I'll go ahead and close this out here. And so, PCI does have a lot of resources for you out there for if you want to learn more about precast concrete, you can go to pci.org. There is an education tab at pci.org. That PCI education tab gives a list of all of our e-learning center and the e-learning center there has all different kinds of webinars and this webinar is recorded. It'll be there also. You also can go to the pci.org ARC BERT page. That list of items on the screen there can be found on our website and that gives you all the resources you need. So, with that, I want to thank everyone for attending and thank Doug for sharing his knowledge today and I'll turn it back over to Royce. On behalf of PCI, I'd like to thank Randy and Doug for a great presentation. As a reminder, certificates of continuing education will appear in your account at www.rcep.net within 10 days. If you have any further questions about today's webinar, please email marketing at pci.org. As a reminder, a pop-up survey will appear after the webinar ends. Thank you again. Have a great day and please stay safe.

webinar

architectural precast concrete

versatility

colored surface textures

sculptural options

connection details

precast producer

collaboration

Domino Sugar Factory project