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.
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