Thesis Proposal
Thesis Proposal
December 9, 2015
Revised Thesis Proposal
January 18, 2016
Analysis 1: Evaluation of Rakers as a SOE System
One of the biggest challenges during the early stages of the project was the use of rakers over tiebacks in the southwest corner of the building. The remainder of the building footprint utilized tiebacks but this corner was forced to use rakers, not because there was an underground conflict with the tiebacks but because an agreement could not be reached with the adjacent owner to place tiebacks under their building. These negotiations turned adversarial and eventually reached a point where the owner of the Lauren refused to pay them regardless of what they offered. This resulted in added time to the schedule, a high cost, and an added challenge to the crews of having to work around the rakers, remove them later, and then go back and fill in the work that was skipped. This was obviously not the preferred method for the project teams. The purpose of this analysis is to determine up until what point in the preconstruction or construction process it would have been beneficial to pay the adjacent owner and use the tiebacks system instead of the rakers.
Analysis 2: Prefabrication of Exterior Facade Panels
The stone panel exterior façade of the building, while a primary architectural feature, was probably one of the most difficult trades to execute. The most challenging aspect of this component were the extremely low tolerances it required. Concrete structure and windows were the two other trades that were most impacted by these tolerances. The concrete was required to meet a precision of ±⅛” when this system typically has a precision of ±2”. This added about a month to the schedule to ensure the building was meeting these requirements. Additionally, the rough openings in the stone were required to be within 1/16th of an inch of the clear openings of the windows. This required a lot of additional planning to guarantee the expensive precut panels that arrived on site were accurate. Using an alternative precast concrete system instead of the stone panels could have saved time in planning, coordination and instillation, saved money, and been much simpler for the crews to construct.
Analysis 3: Impact of Collaboration on Communication and Response Time
The Lauren has a much different contract structure that typical CM at risk projects. Instead of the designers being contracted with the architect, each is individually contracted with the owner. Because of this there was no one responsible for managing the coordination between these separate design entities, making it incredibly difficult for the contractor to receive productive responses to RFIs and submittals in a timely manner. This analysis will take the data on communication paths and response times from the Lauren and compare it to that of other projects with varying levels of collaboration. The purpose of the research is to determine if different levels of collaboration, established through factors such as delivery method and contract structure, have an impact on the communication flow in a project and the response times for important document management items.
Analysis 4: Mechanical Chases for Exhaust Air
Due to the high end nature of the building, the owner did not want any outlets on the exterior elevation that would cut through the stone panel façade. This became a coordination challenge because all exhaust air runs needed to be routed through the balconies, making it difficult to maintain high ceiling heights. Adding two mechanical chases vertically through the building could potentially solve this issue by providing an alternative location where air could be exhausted. This can add value to the building by minimizing the amount of outlets that are run through the exterior façade, but could also be more costly to the project due to the need for additional concrete and large mechanical ducts.
Breadth Studies
Acoustical Breadth:
The site of the Lauren sits in downtown Bethesda on the corner of two major streets: Hampden Lane and Woodmont Avenue. These streets are continuously busy throughout the week with people coming in and out of town for work or recreation. This heavy and constant flow of traffic can be very noisy, so sound transmission through the exterior façade was a design concern to ensure the building occupants are not being disturbed by the commotion at the street level. Several tests were done by sound engineers to ensure the proper STC was being maintained in the windows and exterior walls based on the properties of the interior rooms. With the alteration of the façade material that is being done in Analysis 2, these calculations have the potential to change. For this breadth, an acoustical analysis will be done on the alternative wall system to ensure it does not impact the sound transmission and the required STC levels are maintained.
Mechanical Breadth:
With the Lauren working toward earning a LEED certification, it is very important that an appropriate level of heat transfer through the walls is maintained. In this breath an analysis of the thermodynamic heat transfer properties of the existing and proposed wall sections will be done to ensure that the change in envelope does not have a major impact on the R-value. Substantially lowering the R-value would allow for more heat transfer through the walls which could have a negative impact on the building’s ability to achieve a LEED certification.
MAE Requirements
AE 572: Project Development and Delivery Planning
This course goes into depth about the preconstruction stages of a project ranging from project development and design up through procurement. Much of the course focuses on the different types of project delivery methods and contract types and how these impact the overall success of a project. Analysis 3, which also serves as the critical industry issue, focuses on the impact of project delivery and contract type on collaboration and how these eventually affect communication and response times in a project. Knowledge from this class will be used to initially determine which projects are expected to be more collaborative based on their delivery methods and the structure of their contracts.
AE 570: Production Management in Construction
There are two main focuses of this course: production analysis and lean construction tools. Both aspects of this course contain information that is relevant to the construction analyses of this thesis. First, as a part of Analysis 2 a production analysis will be done as a component in determining which façade alternative is more successful. The production analysis skills developed in this course will be used to complete this task. Additionally, a few of the lean tools learned in this course revolve around value-stream mapping and process mapping. For both Analysis 1 and Analysis 3 a process map will be created to establish a flow of information during the project. The skills acquired from this class in these areas will be used to help develop these process maps.