Best Overall Use of Precast
Description
Striving to become a proactive health facility, the Texas Health Frisco Hospital became known as a “Health Facilitator.” In this project, the exterior skin of the building had a crucial role in telling the overall story. Ultimately, precast was selected as the best material to represent the design narrative at the pedestrian and building scale and reinforced the overall concept.
After demonstrating how precast concrete could deliver the sophisticated look and feel the City was requesting, precast was accepted for the Texas Health Frisco project. Furthermore, the application of precast may influence the acceptance of precast use on other future commercial developments.
Key design features
The Texas Health Frisco project design team worked closely with the precast fabrication partner. Through the use of cutting-edge customized design tools. The primary goal was to create a bespoke panelized precast concrete façade system. A second goal was to support the overall biophilic concept and deliver technical fabrication documentation through an automated shop. As a result, the framework saved on coordination, fabrication, installation time and overall cost.
Innovations or accomplishments using precast concrete
To deliver the nature inspired patterns for the façade of a recent project, the architect embraced an innovative digital workflow process to achieve mass customization and construction efficiency within a unique precast concrete system. This “File to Fabrication” (F2F) workflow enabled team members to push ideas forward, manage budgetary parameters within the digital file and achieve overall design goals. (F2F) design process is a developing workflow trend within the AEC industry that streamlines documentation delivery to bring creative control back to the architect. Precast offered the ability to combine the aesthetics of natural stone, with abstracted erosion surfaces and patterns achieved through precast mold making.
Precast concrete components
The original material that was being considered was traditional brick masonry veneer. The precast design assist along with the innovative parametric design process, helped reduce the construction schedule time and the amount of change orders issued in the design and construction phase. All of this contributed to a $300,000 savings in the construction budget.
- Precast Manufacturer – Gate Precast Company – Hillsboro, TX
- Architect – HKS, Inc. – Northville, MI
- Engineer of Record – Thornton Tomasetti – Dallas, TX
- Owner – Texas Health Resources (Hospital) – Arlington, TX
- Precast Concrete Engineer – Stehler Structural Engineering – St. Paul, MN
- General Contractor – Austin Commercial – Austin, TX
