Description
Schools are much more than just buildings; they are interactive learning environments, gathering places, and safe havens for the community. Construction of schools can be impacted by a myriad of factors, including the evolving construction industry, recent code changes, increasing sustainability requirements, and a challenging economy. These factors are all increasing the demand for safe, healthy, high-performance educational facilities. In this presentation, attendees will learn how to design and build high-performance, sustainable, and resilient schools, with reduced life-cycle costs utilizing precast, prestressed concrete architectural and structural building solutions. A variety of case studies will be presented to highlight precast concrete’s high-performance attributes, including optimization of versatile, efficient, and resilient building applications.
Learning Objectives:
Redefining Educational Spaces: Explore innovative approaches to school design that prioritize high performance and resilience, leveraging the incredible potential of precast concrete.
Life Safety and Beyond: Discover how integrated architectural and structural precast concrete solutions enhance crucial life safety aspects, including fire resistance, storm resilience, superior acoustics, and indoor air quality.
The Power of Prefabrication: Uncover the advantages of off-site construction and prefabrication techniques, particularly when utilizing natural, low-embodied energy materials. Learn how these methods accelerate construction to meet tight deadlines, minimize site disruption, reduce waste, lower transportation demands, and facilitate seamless trade coordination.
Sustainable Excellence: Dive into sustainable design concepts that help control costs, maintain quality, and align with sustainability goals. Gain insights into how precast concrete contributes to sustainable design objectives while saving both time and money.
CEU Credit: 1 PDH; 1 AIA credit
Presenters:
Chris Ard, Director of Architectural, Structural Sales at the Wells Monroeville, Alabama Facility. Chris began his career in precast at Wells’ Monroeville, AL facility in 2001. He has extensive experience in project management, having served as a Project Manager for eight years overseeing the execution of complex precast projects. Earlier in his career, Chris spent eight years as a precast estimator, developing a deep understanding of architectural and structural precast solutions. He now serves as Wells’ Architectural and Structural Systems team for the southeast area.
Jim Lewis, Sales Manager at Tindall Corporation. James Lewis is an architect and design-build strategist specializing in industrialized construction and high-performance building envelopes for K-16 and mission-critical facilities. With more than three decades of experience spanning architectural design, precast innovation, and façade systems leadership, he helps developers and design-build teams deliver projects faster, smarter, and with significantly lower embodied carbon. His work centers on integrating structure, enclosure, and performance through precast and other industrialized building systems bridging the gap between design intent and manufacturing precision.
Throughout his career, James has partnered with developers, engineers, and national design firms to deliver resilient, thermally efficient, and architecturally expressive envelope solutions across the data center, multifamily, education, and industrial markets. At Tindall, he leads initiatives in integrated façade systems that combine structure and skin into prefabricated assemblies, accelerating delivery while enhancing energy performance and constructability. He also played a key role in developing a productized storm-shelter system for K–12 facilities, engineered to meet stringent life-safety standards while reducing cost and construction time.
A recognized industry advocate for sustainable, transparent materials, James leads Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) development efforts that help owners and design teams quantify and reduce global warming potential (GWP) across multiple building systems. His work reflects a commitment to the future of industrialized construction data-driven, resilient, and accountable. Whether accelerating dry-in for hyperscale data centers, streamlining trade coordination through prefabrication, or driving lifecycle-focused envelope strategies, James is dedicated to creating better buildings through integration, intelligence, and innovation.