Tucson Contractor Sundt Creates Its Own Sustainable, Zen Office Space
Best Office Project: The Sundt Cos. Headquarters Active in the Tucson, Ariz., market for more than 80 years, Sundt built this new, 47,000-sq-ft, LEED-Gold office building to showcase its talents as well as provide employee comfort. The two-story concrete tilt-up structure highlights the contractor's self-performed concrete by incorporating numerous irregular shapes and large openings that are unusual for this type of wall system. A dramatic 30-ft-tall faceted wall structure with four varying depth planes in the two-story lobby is highlighted by an overhead skylight and wire mesh accents, and it supports a wide cantilevered concrete stair. The building's core utilizes ground polished concrete floors in both natural and dark-gray-colored cement, patterned using zinc strips similar to marble terrazzo. Floors were cast in two steps with an unreinforced surface slab bonded to a reinforced base slab, in order to improve the concrete aggregate uniformity and enrich the final appearance. "By looking for ways to employ innovative construction practices in our own facility, we were able to develop several techniques, especially with tilt-up and finished concrete, that are now proven and can be employed with confidence on client projects," says Kurt Wadlington, Sundt's project director. Amenities in this home for 100 employees include a fitness center with showers, meditation room, multimedia "innovation gallery" highlighting past work and even a health clinic. "Sundt has long recognized that business success is directly correlated to employee engagement," Wadlington says. "An investment in improving the work environment is an investment in future business prosperity." Submitted by: Sundt Construction Inc. Owner: The Sundt Cos. Inc., Tucson, Ariz. Contractor: Sundt Construction Inc., Tucson, Ariz. Lead Design: WSM Architects, Tucson, Ariz. Civil Engineer: DOWL HKM, Tucson, Ariz. Structural Engineer: Schneider & Associates, Tucson, Ariz. MEP Engineer: PH Mechanical Inc., Tucson, Ariz. Electrical Engineer: Bowden Engineering Inc., Tucson, Ariz. 
