Concrete Products covers the issues that attract producers of ready mixed and manufactured concrete focusing on equipment and material technology, market development and management topics.
Issue link: http://concrete.epubxp.com/i/82325
NEWS SCOPE CONSTRUCTION LEED-certified utilities structure saves $12 million on steel-to-concrete frame switch The San Francisco Public Utilities Commis- sion (SFPUC) headquarters at 525 Golden Gate is the city's newest and greenest office building. The certified LEED-Platinum, award-winning project is a 13-story, 277,500 sq.-ft. structure that serves as the new headquarters for the SFPUC, showcases key sustainability features, and is consid- ered a leading example in demonstrating energy efficiency, water recycling, and re- duced carbon footprint among major office buildings in the country. The building's location was filled for decades by a low-level state office building that never reopened after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. Various city uses were reviewed before the SFPUC stepped in with KMD Architects—which garnered two cita- tion awards at the American Institute of Architects, San Francisco Chapter 2010 De- sign Awards for excellence in the Inte- grated Project Delivery and Unbuilt Design categories—and Stevens Architects to begin design work on the $201.6 million project that will ultimately house 950 com- mission employees as well as a cafe and child care center. Original plans for the SFPUC called for a 12-story building with a steel frame. How- ever, the commission ultimately decided to adopt a resilient post-tension concrete structure design, primarily in an effort to cut costs—somewhere in the area of $12 million. This decision opened the project to other multiple advantages. During the design phase, team mem- bers—KMD Architects, SOHA Engineers, Tipping Mar and Webcor Builders—looked to Central Concrete, a U.S. Concrete com- pany, to suggest solutions for meeting their aggressive goals. These goals included using a set of green concrete mixes containing as much as 70 percent cement replacement materials (with slag and fly ash) and meet- ing strength and workability requirements without compromising the concrete's fin- ishability or delaying set-time. To address all of the requirements, Central Concrete needed to reduce the carbon emissions as- sociated with each cubic yard of concrete and still deliver the high-performance tar- gets set by the project team members. Central Concrete's concrete mix designs were put to the test as soon as construc- tion began. Approximately 5,000 cubic yards of concrete were used in the place- ment of the mat foundation, utilizing a mix with 70 percent cement replacement mate- 16 | SEPTEMBER 2012 WWW.CONCRETEPRODUCTS.COM