FEATURE ARTICLE, JUNE 2007

PRECAST CONCRETE TODAY
Flexibility and value drive growth in new building sectors.
Rita Seraderian, P.E.

Precast concrete has long been the building material of choice for parking structures: it’s durable, it’s economical and it allows an owner to take early beneficial occupancy. Buoyed by decades of success with parking structures, precast concrete is now being specified for a much wider array of applications all across the Northeastern United States.

Schools, retail centers, hotels, health care facilities and corporate offices have all benefited from precast concrete. The Precast/Prestressed Concrete Institute Northeast (PCINE) has carefully tracked the expanding role of precast concrete and identified several reasons for this growth. First, precast producers, architects, developers and others have done an outstanding job of harnessing the design flexibility that precast concrete offers. Second, precast concrete has continued to evolve to meet the demands of today’s owners and developers. And third, the growing awareness of “green building” and the trend toward green regulations both play into key strengths of precast concrete.

Versatility and Flexibility

Most people in the building industry recognize that precast concrete can be produced quickly and accelerates construction schedules, which saves money. But precast concrete offers other critical advantages. Because it is manufactured in a controlled environment, precast concrete is a high-strength, high-performance product that resists weather, fire, corrosion and vandalism.

Precast concrete producers have also continued to develop new offerings that appeal to designers. By combining standard structural shapes with custom-cast shapes, precast now offers incredible flexibility. The inherent plasticity of concrete allows designers to consider unique shapes at a competitive cost. In addition, the emergence of high-performance architectural precast wall systems has given designers a new tool for creating aesthetically appealing, energy efficient walls for almost any structure. 

 Designers can work with producers to select from a nearly endless variety of sands, cements, aggregates and pigments. When combined, these elements can achieve the desired color, texture and finish — all while retaining the core benefits of precast concrete.  Precast concrete: Good for business

A few examples demonstrate the value of precast in practice, offering a representative cross-section of the precast-concrete building boom currently underway. Developers of almost any project benefit from an accelerated construction schedule. But at the Natick Mall in Natick, Massachusetts, completing a multi-level, 1,900-vehicle parking structure in time for the busy shopping season had become an economic necessity for retailers and the owner, General Growth.

The choice of precast enabled the project to meet an incredibly aggressive construction schedule. The precast process enabled the precaster, Unistress Corporation, to work ahead. In fact, Unistress cast about 40 percent of the building materials before the first precast piece was laid. In addition, the process of erecting precast units at the building site is inherently faster than other types of construction. The result: precast brought speed and quality to a very public project, resulting in significant economic benefit for the owner.

Increasingly, developers are using precast concrete for housing projects. At the upscale Velocity Condominium Complex in Hoboken, N.J., shown here near completion, precast compressed the construction schedule and brought flexibility and aesthetic appeal to the project.

Housing projects have also begun to take advantage of precast concrete. At the recently completed Velocity Condominium Complex in Hoboken, New Jersey, Oldcastle Precast Building Systems, Inc. was able to contribute aesthetics and value to an upscale project. (See photo.)

Precast enabled the interior units to have greater spans — up to 40 feet — with no load-bearing walls. The exceptional acoustical ratings of precast also appeal to buyers in Velocity’s urban setting. Finally, outstanding fire ratings enable future residents to benefit from lower insurance costs.

Indeed, because precast concrete offers exceptional safety and energy savings, it has become a material of choice for many schools in the Northeast, including the Hartford Classical Magnet School in West Hartford, Conn.

Going Green

In our region and beyond, green building continues to gain momentum because it carries benefits for the environment, the building’s occupants and the owner. Precast concrete offers significant advantages that dovetail with the green building movement:  outstanding energy efficiency, mold and mildew resistance, ease of maintenance and competitive lifecycle costs among others.

Precast producers have kept pace with developments in both national and regional green guidelines. Specifically, precast concrete can contribute toward earning LEED Certification points. Or, take an example from our part of the country.

The New York Collaborative for High Performance Schools Guidelines (NY-CHPS) were recently created to optimize the life of the facility and make it less expensive to operate. Not surprisingly, precast concrete can contribute to obtaining one-third of the necessary NY-CHPS prerequisites and possibly help towards earning 33 to 60 points.

The Future of Precast 

With its significant advantages and the evolution of the marketplace, precast concrete is poised for continued growth in our region. As the developments above indicate, the precast industry has kept pace with change, and owners, developers and designers have begun to take notice.

Of course, in many ways, the future of precast has already arrived. Over the past several years, a variety of distinctive building projects in our region have opted to specify precast concrete. Developers for some of these structures, as recently as a decade ago, may have considered another process or material. Now, as we move further into the 21st century, there’s little doubt that we will continue to see precast concrete specified for a widening range of applications.

Rita Seraderian, P.E., is the executive director of The Precast/Prestressed Concrete Institute Northeast.


©2007 France Publications, Inc. Duplication or reproduction of this article not permitted without authorization from France Publications, Inc. For information on reprints of this article contact Barbara Sherer at (630) 554-6054.




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