Clark Construction employs 3D modeling, laser scanning to solve healthcare project challenges

When it opens in 2023, a new healthcare facility for MedStar Georgetown University Hospital in Washington, D.C., will aspect the most up-to-date professional medical and technological developments.

The new 477,213-sq.-foot medical and surgical setting up will attribute 156 individual rooms, 32 exam rooms and a rooftop helipad with immediate entry to 31 functioning rooms. An intraoperative MRI procedure with a ceiling-mounted rail process connecting the diagnostic area and adjacent working rooms will convey the MRI magnet right to the patient. In addition, the project contains a 600-vehicle, down below-grade parking garage, 18 elevators and 6 acres of new eco-friendly space.

The site is on the land of the former Kober-Cogan Building, which was shut down in May possibly 2010 after the discovery of mildew in the creating and formerly experienced housed the hospital’s psychiatry division. 

That offered unique worries for the job team, led by Bethesda, Maryland-primarily based Clark Design. Miles of water utility traces, lots of of which were not documented, ended up working specifically under the location of the new pavilion to feed both MedStar Georgetown University Clinic and the Georgetown College campus buildings. The undertaking team had to relocate these utilities outdoors of the constructing footprint to allow for the undertaking to start off.

“The Clark team made and engineered a 250-foot-very long utility bridge to support chilled drinking water and electrical services from the central utility plant to the present MedStar Georgetown Clinic,” said Bradley Hunter, task executive at Clark Design Group. “The bridge installation expected shut coordination with mechanical and electrical contractors who set up the utilities on prefabricated racks which have been then hung from steel beams measuring 60 toes, letting excavation to start out down below.”

Clark Development, along with architects HKS and Shalom Baranes Associates, assembled a BIM model of the current utilities. As style progressed and the fundamental structure and caisson destinations have been set, “we executed additional borings at all caisson areas and even further educated the BIM excavation model,” stated Hunter.

This preliminary stage allowed the Clark group to greater inform the price tag model with regard to deep foundations and to start revising the excavation approach. With approximately 1,000 piles to put in for help all through excavation, Clark recorded the genuine soil and utility problems encountered in serious-time with every single pile and enter the details into the BIM design. This enormously enhanced Clark’s knowing of the site and permitted to continue on to revise and resequence the excavation program in progress of the field crews, claimed Hunter. 

“At the completion of pile installation, we ended up equipped to have a very complete profile of the expected excavation effectively in progress of the last period of excavation,” said Hunter. “With this info, we have been able to acquire mitigation strategies in an effort to decrease impacts to the vital route of the project.”

Group turns to technologies on web site

Clark executed a preliminary study with regular survey devices, these as the Leica MS50, which combines full station operation, GNSS connectivity, digital imaging and 3D laser scanning in a single instrument. The 3D technology executed checks of slab edges, precast concrete, joints and ground flatness. The technologies also coordinates present structures to complete tie-ins with the façade.

Soon after finishing and placing survey handle factors all around the website, the staff started the scanning and structure method, said Kathleen Lavelle, job manager at Clark Development Team.

“For 3D laser scanning, we use our Leica MS50 once again which has complete scanning abilities. We use our study handle points to tie the scanning facts into internet site coordinates. Following scanning is full, Leica’s Infinity program is applied to clean up up the scan,” stated Lavelle. “This can be exported to unique file formats dependent on the program staying used to work with the data.”

The survey workforce utilized Leica MultiWorx, an add-on app to Autocad Civil 3D. This scan information can be applied to make existing ailments and as-constructed drawings as necessary.

Handling an inflow of people today

Because of to its site adjacent to a university and healthcare heart, the Clark staff had to believe of answers to manage the move of students, individuals and readers, particularly early in the COVID-19 pandemic to account for social distancing pointers.

To do this, the design crew constructed a temporary pedestrian bridge to keep access together the east facet of the jobsite. In addition, an on-web site batch plant, producing extra than 35,000 cubic yards of concrete, helped with targeted visitors congestion by decreasing the variety of deliveries to the task web-site. The plant taken out an approximated 3,500 vans off the highway as well as making sure concrete good quality on internet site, in accordance to Lavelle.

Eradicating vans from the street also helped lower sound level, another problem as the development web-site is in close proximity to a number of household neighborhoods, claimed Andree Yaap, challenge government at Clark Building Team.

Clark also worked closely with the HKS and operator to examine which task features could be manufactured offsite. Using a official scoring and evaluation method, the team picked factors to prefabricate based on what would provide the most profit to the job, reported Yaap.

The task contains extra than 700 prefabricated materials, which include 156 rest room pods, functioning room ceilings, client headwalls, electrical rooms, medical rooms, MEP skids and racks, and interior partitioning, said Yaap.

Creating factors ended up made across the state, with bathroom pods staying constructed in Texas, working area ceilings becoming created in Oregon, headwalls remaining developed in Oklahoma and wall panels being developed in Virginia, mentioned Yaap.

“Clark’s efforts have assisted to expedite schedules and minimize expenses,” said Yaap. “Other advantages incorporate increased good quality resulting from assembly in a controlled setting, the reduction of construction action on internet site and a reduction in sound degrees, neighborhood targeted visitors and congestion.”