Prime Therapeutics is a headquarters campus for 2,000 occupants. With employee well-being at the heart of the design, the interior environment is light-filled and flexible with open stairways to promote internal mobility and collaboration.
Respecting the project budget, the exterior is precast concrete and glass. The aesthetic of the precast is elevated by horizontal banding (acid etch finish), vertical accent fins (polished face), color variation, and textural differences. A timeless architecture is achieved through only two exterior materials: precast concrete and glass, simply detailed and beautifully crafted.
Nearly 70,000 square feet of both black and white insulated precast concrete spandrels with an acid etch and polished finishes were used on the exterior façade. The precast producer was involved in an extensive collaborative effort with HGA in designing the structural systems to support precast.
The project designer sums up this project and its use of precast well, “The combined characteristics of prefabrication, design flexibility, and price point made the use of precast concrete cladding an optimal choice for the project. The slender, ivory colored, horizontal spandrel elements give the building a visual lightness. A vertical precast concrete fin, featuring a polished front edge, punctuates the building facades at 15’ on center. Projecting beyond the spandrel units, the fins cast shadows that change throughout the day and animate the façade. Using dark integral color precast panels at the building base helps to ground the building and suggest a change in material while gaining the economies of using precast as the primary exterior material.”
To accommodate the aggressive project schedule, an intense coordination effort between the design team, engineer of record, steel fabricator, precast supplier and specialty engineer was undertaken. To speed fabrication and erection, all precast cladding supports were designed and detailed to be shop-fabricated as part of the structural steel building frame. This required close coordination between all team members to ensure critical design information was communicated and integrated into both the construction documents and shop drawing submittals. Precast panelization, panel loading, and connection details were developed and coordinated during the design process, allowing review of precast submittals and fabrication to commence ahead of the final core and shell construction documents. The minimal field issues encountered during erection was a testament to the team’s effort to deliver an elegant, efficient precast envelope solution. |