The three clinics in the main hospital are interconnected, giving the building a variety of irregular elevations, says Norm Presello of Gate Precast Company. “There’s not a simple, square or rec-tangular box or a north/south/east/west elevation,” he says. “Also, the building steps back as it rises to the upper levels. The cranes setting the precast walls had to reach higher and farther with every increase in level.” There were three cranes on the job-site: two rentals and the contractor’s tower crane. “It took juggling—walking all the way around these structures and plugging in diff erent cranes based on the capacity,” Presello says. Balfour Beatty | McCarthy, a joint venture of Balfour Beatty Construction in Dallas, Tex., and McCarthy Building Cos. in St. Louis, Mo., was the design-build team for the medical center. PROJECT SPOTLIGHT PENSACOLA FEDERAL BUILDING AND U.S. COURTHOUSE Location: Pensacola, Fla. Size: 49,698 ft 2 Cost: $33 million Owner: U.S. General Services Administration Architect: TTV Architects, Jacksonville, Fla. Lead Designer: Beyer Blinder Belle Architects & Planners, Washington, D.C. Contractor: W.G. Yates and Sons Construction Co., Biloxi, Miss. Structural Engineer: Thornton Tomasetti Group, New York, N.Y. PCI-Certifi ed Precast Concrete Producer: Gate Precast Company, Monroeville, Ala. Safety First The blast-resistant precast concrete walls, which are also ther-mally effi cient and preinsulated, are among several features de-signed to earn the medical campus LEED gold certifi cation. One of the sustainable measures includes a 30% reduction in energy use over ASHRAE Standard 90.1, Energy Standard for Buildings Ex-cept Low-Rise Residential Buildings . The wall panels feature a con-tinuous layer of insulation between the building’s interior and exterior, preventing thermal bridging that can nullify the eff ect of the insulation, says Presello. Insulating the walls is eff ective in eliminating moisture transmission, which can cause mold, a huge concern for hospitals. The project was also subject to progressive collapse criteria de-veloped by the DOD. These design requirements reduce the po-tential of progressive collapse for new and existing facilities that experience localized structural damage due to normally unfore-seeable events. Buildings of three or more stories are subject to greater risk of progressive collapse and must therefore comply with these standards, regardless of the standoff distance provid-ed. Standoff distance is needed to keep threats away from the building and can be achieved through such deterrents as benches, fences, lampposts, and bicycle racks. PENSACOLA FEDERAL BUILDING AND U.S. COURTHOUSE PENSACOLA, FLORIDA Built in 1997 by the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA), the Pensacola Federal Building and U.S. Courthouse in Pensacola, Fla., was plagued by water-intrusion issues before it even opened for public use. For nearly 20 years, the federal government spent mil-lions of dollars trying to solve the problem, but ultimately the building had to be evacuated due to health concerns about black mold. A renovation was in order. GSA’s goals included improving, where possible, the aesthetics of the building, says Christopher Noel, senior vice president of TTV Architects in Jacksonville, Fla. “It had to present the image of a United States Courthouse—to have that sense of permanence about it,” says Noel. The courthouse also had to be designed and built to withstand blasts and natural disasters such as hurricanes. To correct water-intrusion problems, the existing brick façade would need to be removed and replaced. Various scenarios were analyzed for the façade, including a mix of brick and precast con-crete. An all–precast concrete exterior with limestone embedded in the panels was judged the best way to meet GSA’s tight schedule and budget. “Precast concrete made the most sense,” Noel says. “The panels only have panel-to-panel joints, as opposed to what you would have with brick or some other material, which reduced the number of joints we had to deal with.” Precast concrete was more budget friendly and most important, it enhances resilience by providing a stronger base product to minimize the damage caused by high winds, says Clay Hudson of Gate Precast Company in Monroeville, Ala., which supplied the panels for the project. A total of 384 piec-es of precast concrete were used.
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