This course is part of the Concrete Academy

Photo courtesy of Logix

Case Study: Kiowa County Commons, Greensburg, Kansas

After the devastating Greensburg, Kansas, tornado in 2007 that destroyed 95 percent of the city and killed 11 people, the town leaders vowed to rebuild to stand up to future disasters and become one of the greenest towns in America. As part of the reconstruction, the Kiowa County Commons building was designed with insulated conrete form (ICF) walls to withstand future disaster events. The 20,000-square-foot community center houses a library, a media center, offices, a museum, and even a restored soda fountain. The ICF walls span up to 40 feet, and the entire structural envelope was installed in just eight weeks.

Entertainment/Hospitality

Safety is always a key concern in structures such as entertainment and hospitality buildings where large crowds of people gather. Fire safety is likely the main reason to select concrete for these types of structures. However, in addition, noise and vibration are also concerns for entertainment and hospitality buildings such as theaters, hotels, and convention centers.

Concrete walls and floors offer the best solution to control noise and vibration. Nothing is worse than hearing someone with their TV blaring in the hotel room next door or the deafening sound from the action movie in the theater next to yours. This is why ICFs are often used for entertainment and hospitality projects for their ability to isolate and dissipate noise. The fact that ICFs can nearly eliminate sound transmission at virtually no additional cost makes them very attractive for any project in which peace and quiet is a selling point.

The concrete core of ICFs offers excellent noise control in two ways. First, it effectively blocks airborne sound transmission over a wide range of frequencies. Second, concrete effectively absorbs noise, thereby diminishing noise intensity. Because of these attributes, ICF walls and floors have been used successfully in entertainment and hospitality applications. Six-inch ICF walls easily achieve a sound transmission classification (STC) rating of 55. Higher STC ratings up to STC 70 can be achieved with additional gypsum wallboard or special isolation channels. For concrete floors, most meet STC 50 or higher and an impact insulation class (IIC) of 50 or higher depending on the floor and ceiling finish.

Photo courtesy of Fox Blocks

Case Study: Miller 15-Plex Theater, West Valley City, Utah

The 125,000-square-foot Miller 15-Plex Theater in West Valley City, Utah, used almost a quarter-million square feet of insulated concrete forms (ICFs) for exterior and interior walls. The megaplex provides an unparalleled movie-going experience with state-of-the-art building innovation. Plus, the ICFs offer the owners lower operational cost due to heating amd cooling load reductions. The many accolades include LEED Silver certification, an Associated General Contractors Retail Project of the Year Award, and an Engineering News-Record Merit Award in 2013. Most ICFs with a 6-inch concrete core achieve STC ratings of 55 and can be easily adapted to achieve increased ratings of STC 70 or higher. The project team, including FFKR Architects, also faced many challenges, including ICF walls up to 57 feet tall, a congested job site due to the existing mall structure, and an extremely tight deadline—which were all met by building several of the ICF walls simultaneously.

Photo: © 2015 Alan Blakely Photography

Case Study: Park City Film Studios, Park City, Utah

Park City Film Studios in Park City, Utah, consists of multiple building types on a 29-acre campus. AJC Architects designed the $23.5-million, 90,000-square-foot building as a full-service, Hollywood-level production studio highlighted by three enormous sound stages. Being the first sound studio in the world to be built with insulated concrete forms (ICFs), the project has brought mainstream film and television to Park City and is receiving national attention from the entertainment industry. Because of the high altitude and cold winters in the Utah mountains, the project was designed and built to LEED Silver standards. Additionally, the studio is located right next to a busy intersection and near a four-lane highway. Keeping this external noise out was a major design consideration. With exterior walls topping 50 feet, the owner selected ICFs for cost savings, speed of construction, and superior acoustic properties. With an ambitious construction schedule of just 10 months to complete the entire building, the ICF installers put the entire ICF scope in place in only 30 days, allowing the owner to have the building ready for business one month earlier than planned.

Conclusion

ICF systems result in construction that is faster, easier, and less labor intensive than other construction methods, such as wood or steel framing. ICFs are lightweight, durable, and offer a system that requires less skilled labor. The system combines the reinforced-concrete structural system along with the thermal, air, and moisture barrier in one step, which reduces the number of trades required on-site. Construction can continue all year long since the forms provide an ideal curing condition for concrete during the hottest and coldest weather.

Because the forms stay in place after concrete is poured, there is no need for labor-intensive wood, aluminum, and steel formwork that requires large cranes and other expensive hauling equipment. ICFs are user friendly, which means that construction crews new to the system can learn the method quickly. Many crews are familiar with the running-bond stacking method used in masonry construction, but instead of stacking small, heavy blocks with wet mortar, they are installing large blocks made with polystyrene, meaning crews can install more wall area per day.

All this leads to a construction system that is ideal for today’s competitive construction environment. ICFs are a modern building system that is easy to use, cost competitive, and meets modern building codes for structural loading, fire, energy, and noise.