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Precast Concrete Off-Site Construction: Techniques ...
Precast Concrete Off-Site Construction - Technique ...
Precast Concrete Off-Site Construction - Techniques & Case Studies
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This is Sue Clowant. Thanks for the great introduction by Brenda that will help us to make short work of some of these intro slides. This is a very unique opportunity. The National Institute of Building Sciences Offsite Construction Council is partnering with other organizations, reaching across organizational lines and taking on the subject of offsite and prefabricated construction from the perspective of different players in the industry, whether Modular Building Institute, Precast Concrete Institute, and some of the other partners who have joined with us. So it's a great opportunity for us to look at prefab from different stakeholders' perspectives and we really welcome you today. Offsite construction involves a broad range and is generally about work that is occurring on the final work site and then moving to the final site. Brenda, I mean Rita, would you go to the next slide? In 2014, NIBS commissioned a survey of the offsite construction. Where do we stand at this time? And the results had some interesting high points that I'll briefly touch on. First, if you can continue on, construction volume versus the availability of skilled labor was rapidly changing. All of us in this industry are well aware of skilled labor shortages while our industry fortunately experiences business growth. And so looking for ways to perform that work at a point where it can be highly quality controlled, very, very safe, and with the fewest and most efficient man hours possible, prefabrication offsite construction lends itself to that. The survey also asked, have you incorporated offsite construction in the last 12 months on your project? And you'll see on the left-hand side, if you could actually read the fine print, that precast concrete has long been and continues to be a primary prefab material, followed by HVAC and plumbing, integrated trade racks, and so forth. But you can see why we picked precast as a topic today. The survey also asked, what were the expected benefits of using offsite construction methods? And the top three included benefit for schedule or improving speed to market, improving quality control, cost effectiveness, which sometimes is value add and sometimes is reducing cost, and so forth. And that survey also asked, do you anticipate using more offsite in the next 12 months? And 83% of respondents said, yes, we do. So we see a methodology, a market that's increasing. There's new knowledge being gained. And if we go to the next slide, we're seeing the opportunity to reduce construction schedules, gain predictability and cost, reduce material waste, reduce carbon emissions in many cases due to transportation, reduces disturbance to the site, and increase the safety and control the man hours for onsite work. The types of projects that would benefit from offsite construction are projects where there is a schedule sensitivity, schools, dormitories, things where there is a healthcare, where there are defined dates for the kids to get in, for revenue to begin. Practitious projects, things that have elements that could be made repetitively, whether that's headwalls, bathrooms, and so forth. Projects that employ unique forms and finishes, where you can do that customization under greater quality control offsite. Projects with unique sustainability or logistical requirements, and we'll hear a little more about that today. And any project where there's any other value add to the client by looking at things a little bit differently. With that, I'd like to introduce Rita. Rita will go over some wide variety of practices and case studies in the precast world. And then Ted Foster and myself will give a couple of precast stories from the general contractor's perspective, watchouts, considerations, where you might gain benefit. Rita? Okay. Thanks, Sue. So I'm going to try to give you an overview of precast systems, since obviously when the survey was done, precast was noted as one of the more common systems that people are familiar with and have specified it for offsite construction. And so what I would try to do in the next, say, 20, 25 minutes, is to kind of give you a snapshot of the industry, some of the products that you would see in the industry. Certainly we can't get into the specifics of designing a building using precast, so the intent really here is to conceptually give you a better understanding of materials that would be considered for offsite construction that are precast related. So cladding probably is one of the more common components that more people are familiar with. Obviously the exterior of the building, using architectural precast, lends itself to a lot of value. We can make buildings look very, very aesthetically pleasing when we are looking at that material. Architectural precast can also be made structural, and I'll talk a little bit about that as we move through some of the case studies, and there are some value added when you think about it as an architectural structural element. And then also we will spend a few minutes talking about all system building, basically the entire building using precast components, and some of the advantages of why you would want to consider all precast, the types of buildings that we've seen built using precast systems, and some of the components that you would see when you're actually building using all precast. So from a strategic benefit point of view, it's a single source material. In other words, it's made off-site at the plant, and the benefit there is that it would reduce the number of potential trades to build that on-site if it's manufactured off-site in a plant. You could also see some benefits in materials. You could obviously reduce drywall if the product is just painted. Fireproofing obviously goes away since it's a fire-resistant material. It could reduce risk because obviously the product is inspected off-site, so before it even gets to the job site, any issues of quality or quality control, quality assurance would be done at the plant. And then the big advantage from precast is obviously it's going to be done a lot quicker, cleaner because it is made off-site. Integrated, what do I mean by that? I mean that we can integrate the product potentially in making it a structural component. So if it's a cladding component, it could be made structural, so that could reduce some of the exterior framing instead of having columns and beams, the component becomes structural and self-supporting. We could integrate other trades, materials into our products, so we'll show some examples of that. So if you compared a typical precast building against a building made on-site, you'll find that there will be a reduction in the number of trades that would have to be coordinated by the contractor. So just from that point of view, your project is going to be expedited. The risk will be reduced because of that trade reduction, so a lot of the materials that are being built in the plant have already been enhanced so that once it's delivered to the job site, obviously the building is going to go up a lot faster. What does a plant look like? Plants are typically, they are very large facilities. A lot of the plants are enclosed, which means that in areas that have obviously wintertime conditions, they could run right through producing product. It's stored right there at the plant, and then also obviously all their raw materials are also stored at the plant. And so obviously it's one stop, everything is done right there. Pieces are, once they're complete, then they can begin shipping to the job site. The plants that PCI represents are certified. Quality Assurance Program assures that they are abiding by PCI's quality control manuals that we've developed. It's a certification program that's over four years, 40 years plus in age. And we have two main quality control manuals that the plants do need to produce their product to. We have a structural product manual, and then we also have an architectural product manual. PCI also does certify the personnel that work within the plant. So the quality control inspectors, quality control people that monitor and make sure the products are being produced in accordance with the quality control manuals are also certified. So again, two levels of certification between plant and personnel, trying to assure that we will have actually very good product that comes out of a plant. So some of the advantages. There are standardized products and there are custom products. Standardized products tend to be more of the products that are used for the actual building of the building frame. The customized products tend to be more for the architectural components, the things that would be customized to make the building enhanced visually. And you can see just drastic difference between the structural product, which is kind of made in the steel form. It's a repetitive shape. This is what's called long line casting, so the product is cast in a long bed, and it's a daily process. And then the custom product obviously is a custom wood form that is going to be used to come up with something that would be pretty elaborate in shape. And advantage of the custom product line is that really you can do anything you want. Colors, textures, different shapes of product can all be incorporated into the product at the plant. So obviously all of that work, typically very difficult to do out in the field and mimic and have the same kind of quality that you see here in these few slides. There's also different types of products in the architectural arena. One of the products that we have here is a cast fiber reinforced concrete, is a lightweight panel system. And that you can get very detailed, so products that would typically be very difficult to try to cast out in the field can easily be manufactured in the plant, and they tend to obviously, because this product repeats, tends to be, from a scale point of view, very efficient, very economical, because the molding obviously repeats multiple times over that skin of the plant. So a product like that can be cost effective. Unusual shapes that may be architectural, but also structural in nature have also been done. This is a pretty neat project, the Patricia and Philip Forest Museum in Miami. Here we're doing a full sphere panel to create that planetarium dome, and the dome is structural. So there's what the dome piece looks like. So that's pretty neat, and it's a pretty complex shape to be manufactured. But again, to show you some of the things that can easily be done in a precast plant. And then the panel being installed. Again, so it is a structural component, it's part of the dome, self-supporting. And we have done actually a number of domes over the years, so this is just another example of a dome type application. What are the add-ons? What else can we enhance the architectural panel with? And a lot's changed. In the old days, it was just a simple panel. Today, again, more can be coordinated. The more you can coordinate up front, the more the producer can install at the plant. Again, saving time out in the field. Insulation, I'll give you a couple of examples of insulation, but insulation's pretty common today. In the old days, not that it hadn't been around, we typically used that product more in the industrial panel arena, but it's moved over into the architectural precast arena today. So again, you now have a high-end architectural finish with insulation also done at the plant. Electrical boxes and conduits can be cast in the piece. So if you have, for instance, a dormitory, and you want to just paint the inside face of the building, it could easily be accommodated by casting the electrical boxes in. Windows can be also done, water faucets. Things such as brick and stone can be cast in at the plant. And then again, if the panel's made structural, we can reduce some of the exterior framing. So an insulated panel, again, I mentioned it's pretty common today. We use a lot of this product. It's gained a lot of popularity, especially since we can vary the insulation from anywhere from two to four inches, and it ends up with having excellent performance from a building envelope point of view. It will meet the thermal mass requirements set forth in the ASHRAE code. And just a couple of quick snapshots of showing you being produced face down is the face of the panel. That will give you your best finish. Here's the reinforcement being placed. So that first top layer of concrete is about three inches in thickness. Insulation layer gets dropped in. Top mat of reinforcement, and then top layer of concrete. If you were at the plant watching that operation, it would take 30 to 45 minutes. It's continuous. The concrete does not set up. So again, advantage there is that you have an insulated panel ready to go, excellent performance. You can see the thermographic imaging of a school in Ohio, and it's showing how well the panels are performing for you, giving you a very tight building envelope. Thin brick, very popular, saves a lot on your construction schedule. It obviously, from a typical hand-laid brick system, is going to reduce your schedule. All the brick work would be done at the precast plant. Certainly if you decided to add the insulation and in-temp electrical work, you're going to save additional time. And basically, it's a brick tile, three-quarters of an inch thick. It is a system. The supplier buys the system. You can see the white is the liner here in the photo, and then the brick part. And they just lay it out. Reinforcement gets dropped in, concrete cast over. Basically, you end up with a power wash and removing any of the latents, and then you end up with a brick-faced piece of precast. Why the popularity of this product has grown is part of the reason is that there are a lot more suppliers of thin brick today. Early on, there was only a few suppliers. Now we have many suppliers. So it is a very competitive product out in the marketplace. And obviously, it will definitely accelerate your schedule. And it is a bonded system. So that form liner system, the white that we've pointed out that came with it, forms the joint. You do not come back and seal or tuck point the building. This is concrete, 5,000 psi. So you never have to worry about any long-term performance issues. And again, the advantage is enhancing the panel. Maybe with some lintels around the window, this is one piece of concrete here. This down here is the actual line, if you can follow the arrow. Up here is the real joint. Real joint is also along this corner here. So that one piece of concrete has all of that done at the plant in the form. And that's a case study. So since we did mention, we would try to go through several case studies so you'd have a better feel for some of the products and their applications. This is Centralia High School in Centralia, Illinois. And this does use insulated load-bearing precast with brick inlay. And we're going to look at one of the panels on its side and pieces being installed. It is a two-story, load-bearing, high-performance concrete wall. But I do want to note, and there's a nice look of the front entrance area, is that these panels all around the perimeter are load-bearing because they do have some steel framing here using a truss that will frame into the back of the high-performance wall. So advantage here is that you'll have eliminated all of that perimeter framing, such as columns and beams. It's no longer a cladding unit. It's a load-bearing structural wall element with a high performance using insulation and also having a very nice exterior finish. Some thermographic imaging showing it inside view, painted so that basically it's ready to go. Nice example of some other things that have been done. This is Florida International University. And here, the panel that they used on this project was glazed at the precaster's plant. So not as common, but we do have producers that have done glazing, so that will save on your schedule. So this saved four weeks on the glazing schedule, so a nice add-on that was easy to do because the panel was... Obviously, you could see it from the previous slide, it repeats significantly throughout the entire building. And then a couple of views of that. Moving on to structural precast, here we're looking at products that have been standardized. So columns and beams and flooring components, this is inverted T-girder, these are double T's, these are hollow core elements, these two are flooring systems, this is obviously a beam component. Some of the things that the producer can do for you, add-on at the plant, is incorporate the mechanical openings, so that all of that on-site does not have to be done. Certainly, it can also be done on-site, but take advantage of the producer potentially putting in blockouts within the pieces, so that when the product is shipped, installed, openings are there, the mechanicals can get right to installing their mechanical items through them. Electrical, same thing, electrical boxes can be cast in. If it's a voided component, we could potentially run the electrical wires through the voids of that unit. Some of the finishes, we can do pad carpet direct, depending on the product line, sometimes you will have to cast topping, and depending on what seismic zone you are, will also dictate whether you are going to be casting topping, or having a cast-in-place slab. The unit itself, if it was a voided slab, for instance, could be painted directly, which is pretty common. Certainly, you can seal these joints if the joints are something that the owner doesn't want, and also, certainly, you can also do a hung sealing. And this is visually what that may look like. Heat of construction is probably our biggest attribute. A couple of examples of fast construction, this is an eight-story building in the Bronx. It was basically built in four months. This one was kind of neat. It was a LEED Gold, and an Energy Star building. They put a roof tarp, excuse me, garden on top of the building, where they were going to grow vegetation, vegetables, for some of the farmer's markets in the area. Another project, mixed use, is another application that we've seen growing in the marketplace. Mixed use applications, typically for us, would be some component of parking involved. We do a lot of parking structures, so building a parking structure with some sort of building integrated with that parking structure is a relatively easy thing for us. This project is actually just finishing up construction. I threw it in last minute, but I thought it would be worthy of noting here. Stanford Integrated Care Facility, obviously, medical is another area in the medical field. We're going to see a lot more office building type construction. So this one, actually, the office area for this building, they kept the same framing of the parking up through. So they were at 60 foot span, so a much larger span than you typically would have with steel. So you have five levels of parking, and three levels of medical office above. This building went up in three and a half months, just to give you order of magnitude of how fast the construction of that structure was. This also had thin brick on it, so again, thin brick product lineup in this area. Melrose Five in the Bronx was a nice project built a few years ago, but I threw it in because it was the first LEED Platinum for Homes for New York. It's also an Energy Star building, 25 percent more energy efficient. It won a PCI Design Award, and it was an affordable housing complex. And a couple of neat things that they did on this project was they used the Holocore voids to exhaust the kitchen and bathrooms. They were not intakes, they were exhausts. So they saved on duct work. So again, some of the things that people have thought outside the box to be creative. This building cut the construction schedule by 30 percent. It was built in one month. And it also earned offsite construction fabrication points. And waste was reduced, and environmental deferred products were also achieved. So just to show you some of the materials and resources sections of the points they actually earned. So this one is just recent. This is just finishing up. So I thought I'd end my section here with this building, because I think this is kind of the next generation of where we see some of the precast applications going. This is for New York City Housing Authority. It's the first phase of a multi-phase project. And this building is a five-and-a-half-story building. It's 148 units, 42 of them will be public housing, 106 low-income. And in this particular application, it is a total precast building, again, using thin brick. So it has insulated panels, stairs, balcony slabs. And the thing that's noted here is it has 117 modular bathroom pods. These were actually manufactured in Orlando, Florida, and shipped up to be utilized on this project. So when we talk modular, it's not just about precast. We're talking about modular type applications for other types of elements. And here, what we're looking at is the bathroom units. So this project, what they did was they started construction on basically New Year's Eve, a nice day to start a brand new project. And the first bathroom pods were installed like six days later. The way they sequenced this project is they did one floor and then installed the bathroom units, did the next floor, installed the bathroom units, and they just continued like that as they went up through the building. And that day, by the way, when they installed the first bathroom units, it was snowing. So they were still able to move through their sequence of installation. And a bathroom, you know, what does it look like? It's a unit made off-site, and it's completely outfitted off-site. So all of that work is done. The bathroom is completely finished out. All the vanity, the sink, everything is installed, bathtubs, tile work completed off-site and shipped up, kind of looking like this on the right, and then it's installed. So one month later, it took a month to put this building up. The bathroom pods are obviously sequencing through construction, so the roof units were installed on February 6, 2015, and that completed the building frame, including all the bathroom units. So again, there's what these bathroom units look like. This is what the manufacturing facility looks like, so you get a better sense of how they build those units. And once it's in place, obviously it will have sheetrock done on-site, but the inside part is completely outfitted and done. So all of that work has been already done. A couple of resources quickly for you. We do have an EPD for those that are interested in that. We have an industry-wide environmental product declaration for architectural insulated wall panels and structural precast. We also have underground facilities. We do have design resources, which you can find on PCI.org, whether it's structural product line or architectural product line, that will help you design the product. That concludes my portion, and we're going to now switch screens and move over to ActaSue and Ted, who will now talk about their case study that they are going to be presenting from Gilbane's contracting point of view. Rita, thank you. That was fantastic and a good ending note. The future is now in putting the building together as more and more a series of Legos, really compressing that erection of the structure and exterior wall. I'm going to share my screen and introduce Ted Foster. We're going to go from the what that Rita showed and some of the benefits that you get into a little bit of a general contractor or construction manager's how. How are decisions made early on in the project? Why are they made that way? And then what are some of the steps we go through to be able to use precast effectively? Ted, do you want to take over and I'll change the slides for you? Thank you, Sue. Hello, everyone. My name is Ted. As you know, I'm a project manager, and I work in Gilbane's international federal unit. We're going to walk through a brief case study today of offsite precast construction focusing on a current project in Saudi Arabia. Next slide, Sue. With any project, I think the ideas, the plans to use offsite precast construction, they begin very early in the project planning stage. On this specific project in Saudi Arabia, Gilbane planned very early in a proposal stage to implement offsite precast in as many project elements as we could. We're currently using precast elements for structural applications in the forms of decks, elevated decks, hollow core planks, exterior bearing walls that are decorative, like many of the ones Rita shared. Just plain architectural decorative features, these came in the form of canopies, decorative cladding, and even shading screens for the buildings in the hot climate over there. And then additionally, even down to the basics in infrastructure, utilities, storm drainage, light poles, security walls, we were just looking at as many things we could precast offsite. And I think now we'll focus, like Sue said, on why we did that and how we did that. So next slide. So the use of prefabrication, as I said, began very early during our proposal development. Our estimating, our scheduling, and even our technical proposal were all geared towards this concept of offsite precast. Due to various client project requirements, which I'll cover soon, they greatly affected our decision making process. And like Sue mentioned in the very beginning, a sensitive schedule, repetitious projects, and projects that employ unique forms, I mean, those were all seen here on our project. And one benefit, too, is the use of offsite precast was seen as an innovative solution by our client during our proposal review, so it gave us a little bit of extra bonus points. The key here is the project was design build, so this allowed for great flexibility in our design. Our RFP included only basic architectural and structural performance requirements, and no specific structural systems were indicated by the RFP. So this allowed the Gilbane team to collaborate with our designers, our construction management team, and our subcontractors just to develop a very efficient approach to getting the project done. Next slide. So let's take a look at the project requirements that really affected our decision making process. The project included a staged turnover of all the facilities. Of all the turnover dates, the second turnover date was included four identical facilities that each were 68,000 square feet, three-story buildings. And that had to include all the supporting infrastructure for those buildings to operate for the client to achieve beneficial occupancy. As we examined this, the second turnover date was very difficult to meet with conventional construction methods. And this second turnover date, all of these dates in the schedule had to include design development, design review, client review, and then finally design approval before we could start construction. So after completing all of the design elements, the construction schedule became very tight if we planned on using conventional cast-in-place concrete decks and form systems. So this is when we really began to think of ways to implement offsite precast. One of the first ideas that we ended up going with was hollow core precast decks fabricated offsite. Some of our – so some of our early planning schedules included even liquidated damages in our risk contingency because we didn't think we could meet the schedule with conventional methods. So that option obviously went out the window very quickly because it increases our price, reduces our competitiveness, and it doesn't make us look very good in our client's eyes. Other options, we assumed trying to build all four of these facilities exactly at the same time concurrently, but that's very hard to achieve in the location we were at considering form systems, the amount of labor to make that happen, and even the equipment to get every building running concurrently to try and meet the schedule. And then finally, one of our last items that really affected it was our limited batch plant capability. Due to our location within a secured facility, our batch plant was erected onsite, but the overall capacity was limited for several reasons. So our construction schedule critical path was based really on the amount of concrete we could pour every day. So when we have these huge decks to pour, it would really stop all of our other concrete pours on the project, which this is delays we couldn't really afford. Next slide. So walking through design development and the conceptual design, being a design-build project, multiple structural systems were considered for these four facilities. As you know, the four facilities were identical. Each floor was identical, and they're three-story buildings. So we had the advantage there to really utilize something to match the repetition. So the decision to use Holocore precast decks was very apparent very soon. And we were early on, we contacted as many precast manufacturers in this region to research their capabilities, work with them to get their plant up to our standards and our specs. And really, this is where we grasped the idea of using precast for all the elevated decks in addition to many other things. So as you can see here on the slide, you can see that we've really went through various conceptual drafts, just the proposal team jotting down ideas, sketching ideas on the plan views, trying to come up with the most efficient system for installation. And some of the key things we really focused on was efficiency of insulation, but also reducing the number of panel sizes. So we wanted to try and use one panel size as much as we could throughout the entire building and even into other facilities that were separate from these four facilities. And then a third thing is really to reduce as many interior bearing walls and increase the flexibility of the space inside the building with the precast elements. So it took many back and forth sessions during that proposal stage, but really that helped us in the long run develop a very efficient approach to getting the buildings constructed. Next slide. So the proposal schedule, like we mentioned, we had a very sensitive schedule. And we realized several benefits from implementing precasts, hollow core decks on the project. So early design of the precast planks is critical. So we could begin fabrication even before reaching the first floor of the building. So we had all the shop drawings done, the precast manufacturer on board, and they could start fabricating those precast planks so that we were ready to have them on site as soon as we needed them. Eliminates purchasing, renting large amounts of formwork. So if we tried to cast all these same buildings, cast in place decks, cast in place walls, we would have had to have a significant more amount of formwork and jacks, shoring, and even people to install all of that formwork. A third item reduces reinforcement quantity and installation versus a cast in place deck. I mean, we eliminated a lot of reinforcement installation and the crews needed for that. Also like Rita mentioned, shaft openings, precutting planks, a little bit of coordination up front and we were able to have the precast manufacturer block out all of our shafts. They're designed, the openings were designed in the design. So even though the panels were standard, we could still block out shafts as needed because it was coordinated very early. The precast panels, they could also be shipped from the plant almost within one day of casting. So these planks could achieve 5,000 PSI compressive strength almost within 24 hours. Because the precast manufacturer, they have the ability to use a very low water to cement ratio in their mix design and improve that strength gain process. So that was very helpful for us too. Then after the planks installed, there's other MEP penetrations that are needed in the building for individual pipes, vents, HVAC, refrigerant lines. Those could be cored directly after the panel installation. So a small team of corers could come through and lay out and core through the decks very quickly and get our utility guys going. Probably one of our biggest advantages was minimal labor needed for the deck installation. So on this job, I think we had two laborers for placement along with the one crane operator and then two riggers on the ground for the panels. So you could compare this scenario to a cast in place conventional method where we would probably have around 20 to 25 people for the same deck to set forms, install reinforcement, finish concrete, even stripping the forms. Really saving people was key to us too because that's people on our facility that we didn't have to get through security badges, background checks, and then all the people are housed on site. So lowering the amount of people is also a huge key for us on the job. Next slide. So here's a few pictures of our project site. You can see early delivery of the decks began as soon as possible to get the guys staging the decks around the building straight off the trucks ready and to go as soon as the shear walls and the bearing walls are cast below them. Simple installation, the tower cranes which are used for many other trades already were able to lift the planks into place. And one key item is the planks were only required to have 60 millimeters of bearing which is around two inches. So there was no complex attachment details or detailing to install the decks. They went very quickly and set right into place. It's very easy to check the bearing. And then once the decks are set into place, they could be easily moved by two people even though they're a very big element, large, but two people with a bar and the assistance of the crane could easily adjust and shift the elements into place. So we were able to complete an entire deck in two to three days as opposed to maybe even 14 to 20 days for the cycle of forming, pouring, and casting a conventional deck. So Sue, I think that wraps up that. MS. PEARSONS Ted, thank you. Excellent detailed case study of the decision making process and the considerations. I'll close with one that's somewhat similar to what Rita already mentioned, a high school where there were decisions to be made about the value to the client and how to get the project done. This project was not designed built to those considerations more to the proposal stage but after selection of the construction manager at risk, that means the contractor who is directly hiring subcontractors, in a realm that was IPD-ish. In other words, the triad that the client set up, the architect, the contractor, and that client themselves worked very, very closely and collaboratively as a team despite the fact that the contract was not a single integrated project delivery agreement. So during that collaborative design phase very early on, that team decided to take a target value design approach looking at what is reasonable to spend and to get the educational program in the school, all the renovations and the sports programs needed, what are the best decisions we can make and explored various options. In this case, wanted to make sure that they maximize value to the client. For example, if we could do the architectural and the structural together instead of two separate systems, can we reduce the cost to the client of the system and spend that money elsewhere to further the educational program? There was schedule advantage. This project is being done surgically around an operating school over summers and throughout the year. Safety is a huge concern, the students and the staff and the public safety. So to make sure that we're reducing our time touching that site and also to reduce the total duration of the project, an architectural plus structural system without insulation in it, and reduced winter conditions, so money spent to heat areas that you're building has no added value to the client after it's done. To be able to get that material and labor savings, to get that savings of not expending the winter conditions, save that time for installation through a collaborative process that assigns value to other items was the goal. So this was a structural, insulation, exterior architectural plus cast-in electrical as Rita had mentioned before. This was done in association with Lombard Architectural Precast Company. Considerations for us when we're making those proposals to the collaborative team, making sure we have a pool of collaborative bidders, capable bidders, making sure that we have wind load and management covered during installation. So while the erection's going on, if wind load hits this, that's a design consideration that we need to take into account because it's not the traditional structural architectural system. Planning for the trades, early coordination with the electrician to be able to cast in and to know where all those features are going, and then coordination through CAD or through 3D methods to make sure that we know where everything is going, it ends up in exactly the right place, and we've got the power to the right place where it meets up. So site logistics were always an issue for us, again on this tight site with the public around it, and making sure that we coordinated where the crane sat and how often it had to move to minimize cost there. With that, we do want to open it up for questions. I'll keep this slide here and just finish on it at the end.
Video Summary
The video is a presentation about offsite and prefabricated construction. The speaker, Sue Clowant, starts by introducing the National Institute of Building Sciences Offsite Construction Council and its partnership with other organizations in the industry. She explains that offsite construction involves work that is done off the final site and then moved to the site. Sue highlights the results of a survey conducted by NIBS in 2014, which showed an increasing trend towards the use of offsite construction methods. The survey also identified the benefits of using offsite construction, such as improved speed to market, quality control, and cost effectiveness. Sue then introduces Rita, who discusses various types of precast systems and their applications, including cladding, architectural precast, and structural precast. Rita also presents several case studies showcasing the use of precast in different types of projects, such as schools, mixed-use buildings, and healthcare facilities. The presentation concludes with Ted Foster discussing a case study of a construction project in Saudi Arabia, where the use of precast elements helped meet a tight schedule and reduce labor and material costs. The presentation emphasizes the benefits and applications of offsite and prefabricated construction methods.
Keywords
offsite construction
prefabricated construction
survey
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