Cascade Meadows Science Center
June 17th, 2010 | Project Showcase
| PROJECT NAME: | Cascade Meadow Science Center |
| LOCATION: | Rochester, MN |
| ARCHITECT: | LHB Corporation |
| CONTRACTOR: | Alvin E. Benike, Inc. |
| OWNER: | Cascade Meadow Wetland Corporation |
Project Details:
Quantity of Insulating Concrete Forms – 2,200 13″ Forms
Ready Mix used: 11,000 cubic yards
The Cascade Meadow Science Center is a research and education facility dedicated to environmental education, with a focus on energy, water and wetlands. Upon completion, the Center will house a reception area, interactive exhibit spaces, a large conference and meeting space, a science lab for the study of native wetlands, a conference room, and offices for staff and on-site educators. The grounds will feature a restored wetland and lake with outdoor learning stations and trails.
In pursuit of LEED® Platinum Certification, one component of the 16,000 square foot center is Reward® Insulating Concrete Form (ICF) technology for the above grade exterior walls. ICFs offer many sustainability benefits for both commercial and residential structures, including energy savings of up to 50-80 percent over traditional wood framed buildings. ICF walls have also been tested to withstand tornado winds exceeding 200 mph. They are far quieter and provide for a clean indoor air environment that eliminates the possibility of mold growth within the exterior walls.
“The Cascade Meadows Science Center will serve as a catalyst for meaningful and enduring learning that promotes sustainable living through exhibits, events, seminars, conventions and more. Cemstone and Reward are proud to play a role in this important and significant endeavor by demonstrating how the use of ICF technology can help create a more sustainable structure. The ICF portion of the Cascade Meadow Science Center went really smoothly. We’ve done several ICF projects together with Reward and Cemstone. It’s easy construction in terms of design – and our contractor has lots of ICF experience. The most important advantage for the building owner is energy efficiency and a higher R-value. In addition, ICF buildings are quieter inside, which is very important in many residential applications. Using concrete in an ICF building also helps contribute to LEED points. It’s also a benefit to LHB to have representatives from Reward and Cemstone available to answer questions. We’d recommend ICF construction – the buildings speak for themselves!”
Anne Ryan, Project Architect, LHB, Inc.
ICF Student Residence Hall Part III
March 11th, 2010 | From the Field, Marketing, Project Showcase
Wrapping up this project highlight I wanted to give some special credit to the guys who actually put this thing together. As Reward is just the insulating concrete forms, some one has to know how to stack ICFs, align ICFs, and pour concrete as well…oh yeah and DESIGN using ICFs.
ICF Construction and Design Team
Owner: Pegasus Group/Carleton College
Architect: LHB
General Contractor: J.E. Dunn Construction
ICF Installer: Northland Concrete and Masonry
ICF Distributor: Cemstone
Some Cool ICF Pictures
The picture above shows a sunny, however frigid day in Minnesota. If you have been up there in the winter months you know it can get pretty serious. But with the dorms needing to be ready for fall semester they worked through the winter in sub freezing temperatures. Many days hit below zero, but luckily ICFs allow for concrete placement and curing with sub freezing temperatures.
This picture below is a meat thermometer(highly sophisticated measurement) stuck in an ICF and the concrete after placement. It shows what the curing temperature is of the concrete…100 degrees. The outside air temperature was under 20 degrees.
Finished Insulating Concrete Form School
Please enjoy the pictures of this awarding winning school.
As the year goes on and hopefully this projects racks up a couple more awards and we’ll post some updates on the continual energy use and any more ambitions from that campus.
Reward on PBS Series Hometime
March 9th, 2010 | From the Field, Marketing
Hometime Television Series and ICFs
Once in awhile an opportunity comes up where we can get our product on TV. It worked out at the end of the year in 2009 to partner with Hometime on PBS, as they planned to build the foundation of a beautiful home out of ICFs just outside of Minneapolis. The show also teamed up with Cemstone, and their pretty blue trucks, in Minnesota for the concrete placement.
Below is the show broken into 5 parts, for ease of downloading. If you would like to request a full version to use for your home shows involving Reward please contact us and we will see what we can do.
I got rid of the embedded players, so to view videos they will download and start when you click a link. Files sizes range from 5mb to 10mb, so please be patient.
ICFs on Hometime Part 1
ICFs on Hometime Part 2
ICFs on Hometime Part 3
ICFs on Hometime Part 4
ICFs on Hometime Part 5
ICF Student Residence Hall 2
February 23rd, 2010 | Marketing, Project Showcase
Last week we started highlighting the award-winning Carleton College, one of the top ICF construction projects of 2009. We were happy to be the ICF of choice for this project, as the school is nationally know for their sustainable practices. Here are a few quick facts of the Carleton College.
ICF Project Statistics
- Location: Northfield, Minn.
- Type: MultiFamily—Two Student Residence Halls
- Size: 91,536 sq. ft. (floor) 52,150 + 39,376
- ICF Use: 63,840 sq. ft. (walls)
- Height: 4 stories plus gables
- Cost: $26 million (budgeted)
Live Energy Use Data
One of the unique features of the project is that there are energy use monitors installed in the Residence Halls. This allows the school to track energy use per building, per floor, and for each individual dorm rooms as well. They can identify energy hogs, and maybe advise heavy energy offenders how to cut energy use as well. This is a huge advantage when educating responsible behaviors to students and getting them thinking about the cost of energy.
Along with energy use monitors, they also have the ability to track the energy creation through photo-voltaics and steam generation as well. Those systems were put in place to help heat the water and to offset energy use. Carleton understood the importance of securing the building envelope so it made sense to add P/V systems.
Energy creation is good…and seems to be the only thing to get the government’s attention…but won’t be a feasible source (cost wise) if buildings don’t start limiting their energy consumption. ICFs can limit a building’s energy use! See their live energy use data.
Beyond the Insulating Concrete Form
Carleton College has identified over 36 distinct green attributes to these buildings, other than the use of ICFs and fly ash in the concrete. From reflective roof tiles, to using local vegetation for landscaping, this college is on the leading edge of sustainability.
As you can see there are wonderful things going on in the ICF world up in Minnesota. Next week we’ll go over the star contributors to this project and show some great cold weather concreting pictures.
ICF Student Residence Hall
February 16th, 2010 | From the Field, Marketing, Project Showcase
Carleton College Student Residence Halls
This was one of our favorite projects for 2009. There were so many features to these buildings and Carleton College truly showed their commitment to a sustainable campus. In the next few posts I will attempt to give our due diligence to this project, show you different construction phases and the finished project as well. Carleton College Residence Halls also won an ICF Builder Award, which was announced at World of Concrete 2010.
Building Energy Modeling Analysis
A building energy modeling analysis (from The Weidt Group) was completed during design, and it was determined that total energy consumption would decrease a minimum of 28% compared to a standard baseline building performance. Carleton did not install ANY A/C as well due to the tight thermal envelope created by ICFs. I asked Maureen Ness, AIA, LEED AP, CDT, with LHB to explain how the modeling worked:
“It basically shows that by spending $54,941 more than a typical building on specific energy-saving strategies, the annual energy savings will be $29,476. There are a lot of factors in the modeling and one of them that we’ve seen on non-air conditioned housing projects is that you don’t really get credit for not air-conditioning, even though that is a lot of savings over a conventional building.”
The total payback, of the additional costs, of making these ICF Dormitories energy efficient is 1.5 years!
(Do you want an energy analysis done on your current home being designed? We are offering a free energy analysis to show you the dramatic savings you can get with ICFs.)
Sustainable features of Carleton College
Overall, Carleton College has identified over 36 distinct aspects to these building that are considered sustainable features. From low flush toilets that will save 30% on water, to copper tiles on southern facing roofs to deflect heat gain, LED lighting, as well as natural foliage planted around campus that is sturdy and weather resistant. All of these features are contributing to their LEED Gold certification.
Next week, we will show you all the live energy data from the school as well as some more highlights of this project. In the meantime check out the rest of our highlighted ICF projects or our ICF gallery section on rewardwalls.com.
TimberLake Lodge
September 17th, 2009 | Project Showcase
Project
Timberlake Lodge
Grand Rapids, Minnesota
Overview
Timberlake Lodge, a destination hotel, in Grand Rapids built this 84-room, 3-story hotel with full amenities including a banquet hall, a large pool and sauna entertainment area, and full restaurant and bar.
The main reason for choosing Reward ICF’s was to accelerate the building schedule. With reducing material lead time, early occupancy was accomplished. Early occupancy, meant making money quicker for the owner.
Also by using Reward ICF’s for the interior partition walls they were able to use them as bearing walls for Hollow Core plank, experience increases in fire rating (4 hours), and demand a higher STC rating to improve guest experience.
No more staying the night and hearing the “argument” of the vacationing couple next door, or the partying of the fraternity group down the hall! ICFs are ideal for hotel and condo guest experience because of their ability to sound proof.
Challenges and Unique Install Techniques
For building the pool room ICFs were chosen for their mold resistant properties and ICF construction was able to continue through the winter without interruption.
Gable roof framing was also easily cutout and poured using Reward ICF’s and overall they were versatile enough for tall wall construction of 20’ to 54’ high.
Project Specs
42,640 Sq. Ft. of ICF wall
8,000 Reward Forms
Fiber Cement Board Siding
PreCast/Hollow-Core Plank Floors
All Interior Partition Walls
13” iForm = 8” poured concrete
Sustainable Design Conference Recap
June 23rd, 2009 | From the Field
On May 19th, Cemstone Products Co and Reward hosted our first ever Sustainable Design Conference in Burnsville, MN, in order to educate the surrounding community of architects and building designers/planners on using insulating concrete forms (ICFs) to maintain the new green building standards of design. There is much buzz on that topic, so luckily I do not have to elaborate as one could turn on the TV or swing by YouTube to see what that the future of design is focused on building green. The event took place at the CineMagic Atlantis 15 Theater, which was constructed with ICFs.
CineMagic Atlantis 15 - Click to see project profile
For the conference we hosted a few professionals of the likes of Donn Thompson, the acting Director of the PCA; Richard Rue, previously from NASA and current founder of EnergyWise Structures; and Arol Wolford, from REED Construction Data, who’s visionary status pegged him as the pioneer of Building Information Modeling (BIM). For all of the sessions that day there were 6 AIA HSW and SD credits available for AIA members.
- Attendees in Theater
Architects and Designers at Lunch
We had a very solid turnout with local and regional designers ranging in scope and age and types of businesses. We had some outside vendors come in as well in support of Cemstone. Questions and answers were exchanged throughout the day on design methods, detail drawings, contributing to LEED credits, and the future of design with BIM…Yes, our ICF Revit models are available now! (shameless plug)
We’ve done our best to try to post a few videos on our YouTube channel, from this conference to share a few excerpts from each speaker, as there were 6 hours of conference and no one wants to sit through ALL of that. If you do, please contact us as I’m sure I can arrange it. So, it’ll take some time to get through all of the info and speakers to share with you, so check back often.
Do you have a large audience of Architects, Design/Build Firms, or Designer in general that would benefit from a conference in your area? Let us know! These take quite the effort to put on, but the information and conversations exchanged are extremely beneficial, so maybe your area could be next on the list.
Our insulating concrete form industry is still so young, yet is showing signs of explosion. The more people that are educated on the benefits of insulated concrete forms, green building, and Reward Wall Systems of course, the better. We are convinced the future is incredibly bright…so bright, make sure your glasses are tinted and polarized.
The New Standard of Sustainability. Tell the World.