In order to build a new clinical facility for cancer patients on a tight Boston site, engineers and contractors had to devise a 70-ft-to 110-ft-deep barrier wall to serve double duty by cutting off groundwater and isolating ground vibration. They did that by installing a rock-socketed 3-ft-thick slurry wall incorporating 268 permanent tieback anchors, many located under a busy city street, and by cantilevering a lay-down area.
The $350-million Yawkey Center for Cancer Care is the latest addition to the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (DFCI). The 15-story structure is being built on a 198-ft-by-186-ft site and will have seven levels of below-grade parking. But the Yawkey Center had to be shoehorned between the 100,000-sq-ft footprint of the Medical Area Total Energy Plant (MATEP), the 13-story Smith Building research laboratory with its seven levels of below-grade parking, busy Brookline Avenue and Jimmy Fund Way. “Yawkey Center will allow DFCI to address a significant increase in patient visits as well as expected growth in patient volume well into the next decade,” says Thomas F. Herring, DFCI project executive.