Closing Discussion

This semester long project has been a good one for a number of reasons, most importantly it increased our learning of the subject matter in class. The site walk throughs were meant to back up what we were talking about in class and they did so very well, as long as you visited the correct sites. There are many construction projects going on on campus at any given time and each one represents a unique part of the trade. The Signature Engineering building offered us a look into excavation, cut and fill, and structural concrete with deep foundation systems and caissons. The Performing Arts Center allowed us an insight into deep foundation systems, concrete walls and floors, and most importantly how the contractor dealt with issues that arose on site. The ASA building offered an insight into many different things depending on when you observed it this semester; they were doing structural and the masonry facade early in the year; they were working on installing glazing and doors; they were installing interior walls and ceilings; they were installing and finishing drywall; the casework and other finishes were being installed at the end of the semester; and the HVAC, plumbing, electrical, fire safety, and data was being installed during the end of the semester. The structures design/building project on Tom's Creek represented a look into wood framing and stick building on site, we also got a chance to look at headers, jack studs, king studs, and cripple studs like we had talked about in class. There are many other construction projects going on on campus that cover these same topics that I had the chance to watch come together. I am a firm believer in experience being the best learning tool and I think this opportunity to observe sites and even walk around some of them gave us all a great opportunity to increase our knowledge of the trade.

Another of the benefits of this project was that if we ran into questions or issues when we were were doing these walk throughs we had the opportunity to go to class and ask Dr. McCoy about his perspective on our questions. I don't think i have any outstanding questions from this semester as we did a very good job covering each of the different topics in class through the lectures.

I will continue to watch these sites come together throughout next semester and am interested to see how they come about and what issues they may run into. Maybe I'll even keep this blog up to date instead of letting it get lost into the endless void of the internet. I would like to think that what I've learned this semester will allow me to one day building something like the LumenHaus in all its technological and architectural wonder.

Thanks for a wonderful semester to all those that made it so good.

Daily Log 12/7/2011 ASA Project

Tonight I made one final trip to the ASA building to get an insiders look at how the project had been coming along. We got a full tour from the basement all the way to the penthouse and it offered a very good insight into how the building is coming. There are some really neat features in this building that I managed to capture with my camera and otherwise heard about from the two foremen and the site intern from Skanska that were doing the site walk through with us. Attached is the daily log report and some photos from inside the building and a couple from the exterior the day before.

12-7-11 Daily Log Report (Reddick Construction) ASA Building

The day before I walked around the site and saw the masons finishing up the Hokie stone facade on the lower exterior of the building, you can not really see the work they are doing because of the weather protection they have set up. This weather protection allows the masons to stay out of the elements and to use heaters inside of this poly in order to keep the mortar the right temperature for an ideal setting bed. This is pretty typical of what I've seen at construction sites at home, where we get more snow and colder temperatures.

This photo looks down the main entrance side of the building, as you can see the wall is almost entirely made of glass which gives a really nice effect both walking up to the building and when your inside eating. Last night I got a chance to walk through this area and it really is going to be an amazing building.

This photo from the back of the building shows the work still being completed on the exterior of the building. You can see that there are some men caulking around the windows on the top floor and masons installing Hokie stone. From these photos you can see that the exterior of the building is nearly complete and should be done by early spring depending on weather.

We entered the building through the corp entrance and the first thing you see when you come in this doorway is the "Bistro" which will be a Chicago style steak house. This photo shows some of the metal studs that are being used in the construction of interior walls. Metal studs were used throughout the entire building, no wood was used in construction.

From this photo you can see the ceiling which will be exposed like that of Bishop Favrao. There will be some architectural ceiling pieces that are complicated and unique looking but otherwise the ceiling will be completely exposed and will just be painted on the lower two floors, the upper third floor will have a suspended acoustical ceiling.

The future main stairway is going to be a really unique item that sets this building apart from others on campus for a number of reasons. All they have in place right now is the structural elements but soon enough they will have the precast concrete steps with glass and stainless steel railings. It is will be the main way to get form the first floor to the second floor eateries and will be quite a site when it is complete.

One of the unique things used by Skanska is their technology on site, this television/computer hub is used by all subcontractors in order to view the most up to date drawings. Also on these computers is a virtual building that is available through Revit software, so there is an up to date BIM drawing of the entire building that is accessible to all the subcontractors on site. This allows each trade a precise drawing of where their materials need to be in order for the other trades to get through with their own materials.

This, poorly lit, photo is the entrance to Brugers Bagels. These circles represent the theme for the entire bagelry as the chairs will be decorated with circles and the walls will be adorned with different circles. The Skanska men said it took three men a week just to build, sheet rock, and finish these couple of holes; whatever makes the architect happy I guess!

As you can see here the casework and most of the drywall is already installed in Brugers Bagels. Skanska uses a "moisture resistant" drywall so that they could install it earlier in the season and because it is a higher quality material. They just bite the extra cost because they know it will result in a higher quality finished product for the owner.

Here we can see some of the future casework for "le cafe". From this we can see all the hard work and planning that had to go into the building because of all the stub ins through the floor for electrical, water, gas, waste, and other utilities. I can just imagine the headaches that go into designing something like this with thousands of connections in such a small area; there are nine different food service station within this building that all had to deal with the same issue as this.

Its hard to see in this picture but it represents the "origami grill" where students will be able to sit down and have a Japanese chef cook right in front of them. There will be complicated suspended hoods over each different grill that will each be uniquely constructed. There will also be an entire glass wall with different LED lights on the bottom so you can color the glass different colors and the rear wall will have a "tree" facade that is just a slice out of an old growth tree; this weighs somewhere between 600 and 800 lbs so the wall had to have extra strength built into it. This place is going to be awesome.

Upstairs their are three 75 person classrooms that will be used by a multitude of different courses. The classrooms have a raised floor (that I didn't get a picture of), so that it is easier to run electrical conduits and internet into the room, and a "cold beam" in the ceiling in order to cool the room. The cold beam works by running water over chilled coils and creating a cheap and green air conditioning unit; they are pretty neat and are used in many buildings on campus now.

This final picture is from the pent house and shows just one of three air handlers for the building. There are three handlers because of the total square footage that each one will have to cover. Number one, the largest one, services the first two floors eating space, so the largest portion of the building. Number two services the office space on the second floor. Number three services the classrooms and offices on the third floor. The pent house draws air from the exterior of the building from the louvers that you can see outside, so these are active and not for aesthetic purposes.

This building is really amazing to walk around inside and this site walk through was a great experience, I'm really glad I made the time to visit the site again before this project was completed. There is a lot more going on inside the building that I didn't even talk about because I couldn't remember all we covered. This building has a lot of green properties and will be certified LEED Silver when it is completed, this is mandated that all state and federally funded projects must reach this certification. I am very glad that I will be able to use this building next fall and am looking forward to trying all the different foods offered; as for the construction though it offers us as students a unique look into a very technological and aesthetic building that must be completed on a tight schedule. Skanska appears to be doing fine right now thought from what we talked about on the tour.

The Issue with Rain

It was interesting walking around campus today, past the five or six construction sites, and seeing no men working on any of them. Now I had assumed that the workers would be out in the field today working because there was no lightning or thunder but that was not the case. The thing that makes me wonder about this is that when I worked as a labor at home during the summer time we would work through any weather other than lightning and if that was the case we would rarely even leave work. On one occasion we showed up to work around 7:00 am (the typical starting time) to find our site completely soaked from the past 24 hours rain and a complete mess; the bad thing though was that they had called for lightning until about 8:00 am. So we waited in the job trailer until about 8:00 am and started working just like any other day although it was a complete downpour. The reason we were able to work was because the lighting had cleared but the storm had not; so we got wet, really wet, but we didn't let that stop our work. It amazes me that these projects on campus which all have such tight schedules shut down for the day because of a little rain. It would be interesting to see what the different big companies in the country have for work policies in different weather situations. Maybe it is just the superintendent or the project managers call, but if I was the one in charge I would definitely have had the men out there today. The good thing about the rain is that you only get wet once. Attached are a couple of pictures from the signature engineering building and as you can see there are no men on site.

As you can see the site is pretty wet but it should not be a cause to stop work.

Daily Log 10/18/2011 Signature Engineering

Today I walked over to the Signature Engineering project near the parking garage and got a closer look from the ground, I then ran up to the top of the parking deck to grab a photo or two of the site. From here I could see that the site was just starting to get ready for some serious work. The asphalt had been completely cleared from the site, the equipment seemed to be ready to go and was just waiting on the go ahead, and the men seemed antsy to get the real work started. It appears that they are about to start drilling caissons on site being that the drill rig is on site and seems ready to go along with all of its different drill bits and coring bits. Attached to this is a daily log for the site visit today.

10-18-11 Daily Log Report (Reddick Construction) Signature Engineering

As you can see here the site is beginning to set up and prepare for the caisson construction and to begin the heavier work load. Soon the site should be under more man power and more things should be happening on a daily basis. When I was done walking around the base of the site i ran up and took a quick photo from the parking garage (where this is from).

I wonder if this site will run into the same problems that they did on the Performing Arts Center site, that is the high amount of water for the foundation caissons. It will only be a matter of time until this is found out. If they do run into the same issue here I wonder if they will handle it the same way? Is there a possibility of them going to Holder and asking how they handled the issue or is that kind of cooperation unheard of between competing contractors? I know that if I was working I might first be neglectful to tell my competitor how I had solved an issue but it could save their project and help out the university as a whole in the long run. If all construction companies upheld a high moral standard them I'm sure the people of the world would not view us with such bad pretenses some times, contractors are rarely out to take you for all the money you have. This just got a little more philosophical than I had intended it to but it is a valid question worth thinking about. I will have to keep heading to this site throughout the semester and see the progress that it has made, if they are done with the caissons in a relatively quick time then it is easy to tell that they didn't run into the same issues as the Performing Arts Center. As for the construction that is going on directly next to the parking garage and more near the sidewalk, it does pertain to the Signature Engineering building. I asked the men what they were doing and they said that they were running the existing electrical and water mains to the new building; so the Signature Engineering building will be tied into Virginia Tech's main campus grid.

Daily Log 12/5/2011 Turner Street

I went back and visited the Turner Street Parking garage site again to see if there was any progress made from the last time I had visited; there wasn't much of a difference from the last time. The main difference was that you could see that Holder was stepping up its excavation and grading process, there were more men and more pieces of equipment on site today then their were prior. The price of this job must have increased a lot due to the man power because of the increase of men and equipment on site. I wonder how much thought and time goes into allotting men and equipment for a project; do you put all your men and equipment on site for say a week or do you slowly bring men and equipment on over a three to four week period? This is something that I guess is up to the contractor, the scheduling, and the immediate budget for the job. Attached is the daily log form from today and a photo of some of the equipment and work being done.

12-5-11 Daily Log Report (Reddick Construction) Turner Street

This photo is taken from the McDonald's side of the site, allowing a different view of the site. You can see here just a glimpse of all the work going on currently. What you cannot see in the photo is the the caisson company or the utility company finishing up.


This site is always an interesting one to visit because so much is going on at any given time. The site allows you to see mainly at this time the movement and grading of the earth. The finished grade of building slab appears to have dropped multiple feet from the existing roadway on Turner street; when the building is completed I am assuming there will be one entrance (for cars) near the "Chu-Chos" building and that the rest of the building will be storefronts much like that of Kent Square Parking garage. It will be interesting to see what the face of the building looks like when it is completed.

Daily Log 12/2/2011 Stanger Street

Friday morning I went and visited the small utility and sidewalk site on Stanger street, directly across from Mcbryde. This site has been going on for a while and has progressively moved down Stanger street towards campus starting all the way down by the parking lot across from Surge. I have to assume they are installing a new utility or water line of sorts because you could see through the fence for a while and see that they had men deep in a hole working on something underground. This site has caused car and pedestrian traffic to be congested for some time now and it is nice to finally have the sidewalks open for pedestrian use. Attached is a limited daily log report, very few men on site and even fewer safety procedures, and a couple of photos of the site.

12-2-11 Daily Log Report (Reddick Construction) Stanger Street

This first photo shows a picture down the new sidewalk that the concrete was poured for the day before. You can see the labor removing the concrete forms from the sidewalk. The step that follows is to pour the concrete for the last section of the sidewalk, this was done that evening and the sidewalk was finished and open for use on Monday.

Here you can see the new sidewalk from a higher and a little different angle, again the labor is still stripping the forms using a leverage bar that allows him to easily pull the stakes out of the ground. I have never seen a bar like this but it is a great idea, when I would have to pull stakes in the field we would just hit them with our hammers and attempt to pull them at the same time; using this tool makes the process much easier from what I've seen today. Around the corner, where the front end loader is pointed, an existing sidewalk is being removed by a labor and an operator from the utility company; they must be finishing up what little bit of work they had left because as of Monday they were gone.

This site doesn't seem like it could entail that much work but I'm sure there was a lot going on under ground that could not be seen by the simple passerby of the site. It took them a long time (nearly the entire semester) to finish the stretch of sidewalk that runs from Major Williams to Surge, so there had to be some important tasks being accomplished down those holes. Now that this sidewalk is again open for pedestrian traffic I'm sure that the congestion on both the roadway and the sidewalk will clear up. As a frequent walker of this sidewalk I am glad to see it open again. The only recommendations I have for this site would be to increase the safety of the workers on site by requiring PPE to be worn by everyone. Also I realize there was not a lot of room to complete this work and that's why the work zone had to spill over into the sidewalk and even the road on some days, this was a required part of working in such a confined space.

Daily Log 12/1/2011 West AJ

For the third visit today I went over to the West AJ Renovation project. This project is an extensive complete building renovation that has been going on for over two years now, obviously there is a lot going on. I didnt have the opportunity to walk inside the building but I did get some photos and take some notes from the exterior of the building. Attached is a daily log form and also some photos.

12-1-11 Daily Log Report (Reddick Construction) West AJ

This photo shows the exterior of West AJ looking into the corner of the building where they are rebuilding the masonry of the exterior. You can see the extensive scaffold system that has been installed surrounding the exterior of the building, this is where the masonry company is working from. This allows them an ample work area for the men to work safely and quickly.

From this photo you can see another angle of the building and the scaffolding. There isn't a lot that you can see from the outside of the building so this is why the two photos seem to look so alike. Again you can see the extensive scaffold system that has been installed around the exterior. In front of the building you can see the staging area that is being used to park vehicles, where the office trailer is, and where materials are beings stored.

This site offers a unique experience in its scaffolding system, I feel like these are getting more rare today instead of seeing men working off lifts or pneumatic scaffolds. I really regret not going to the interior site visit of this building, it would have been very beneficial to see what they were doing inside the building; being that I missed it though this is the best i could do. The only recommendations I have for this site is to use more pneumatic scaffolds instead of the extensive scaffolding; I would expect the use of man lifts and pneumatic scaffolds would cost less than this and would be easier to maintain. It would be interesting to see the estimated price difference between the scaffold used and my idea.