Safety measures were integrated into every part of the project, from the ‘stretch and flex’ to the installation of engineered fabric straps atop each of the concrete columns, about 30 feet apart, as each of the floors were poured, providing a first tie-off point for workers until the curtain wall was installed.

The project team only had one incident throughout the 20-month project, where there were, at times, more than 100 employees on site, Howe notes.

Efficient efforts

The Skanska team will finish the new office building on schedule and on budget.

Some of the contractor’s efficiency efforts included using the IntelliRock system to gage the strength of concrete. This consisted of a range of sensors/loggers to measure and record physical properties of in-place concrete, allowing the team to strip the concrete forms at a faster rate and increase productivity.

Also of note, the team was able to complete the foundation pour, which was done on a Saturday night in order to properly time deliveries of more than 300 concrete trucks, in under 11 hours, Mair says. “So what that means is a concrete truck was discharging and another was leaving the site every two to three minutes.”

On the outside of the building is an all glass curtainwall with floor plates. Skanska made use of a unitized curtainwall system that allowed for more site accessibility and for the tower crane to be primarily used for other trades. All exterior curtainwall was fabricated offsite and the curtain wall panels were brought in fully glazed.

“That added a safety advantage and a quality control advantage,” Howe explains.

Mair further notes that Skanska’s “buildings have clear and unobstructed column lines, meaning they’re only at the core or the exterior of the building. We’ve cantilevered the building, and we’ve got a notch in there that creates four corner offices on each end of the building, so therefore we have eight corner offices with unobstructed views, so our consultants worked in a very good way to create a really attractive, really efficient, sustainable project for us,” he says.

Skanska’s Houston office will move into the new building at the end of September.