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| Piece by piece |
| By Ann Coppola, News Reporter |
| Published: 04/02/2007 |
Remember Legos? Those fun, multi-colored little bricks you built castles with? Now imagine stacking hundreds of 30-ton Lego bricks with a hydraulic crane. This is what precast construction for schools, dormitories, and most recently, correctional facilities is all about.Precast construction is relatively new to the corrections industry, but is growing rapidly in use across the U.S. Instead of building a facility on-site from the ground-up, concrete correctional cells are "precast" at a manufacturing plant and shipped to the construction site. Then the facility itself is built by stacking and assembling these pre-fabricated structures. "It's a monolithically cast piece all poured in one shot, without needing to bolt or weld any pieces on," explains Jeffrey Hornberger, a correctional sales agent with Pennsylvania-based Oldcastle Precast Modular Group, one of the leading precast construction firms in the U.S. "It's as close to as finished as you can get it only the utilities, electric, and plumbing need to be connected on-site."  Interior of a precast cell Building an Oldcastle prison cell is a six-day process that starts in one of the company's factories. A steel reinforced cage is placed into a mold that has allotted space for electrical conduits, windows, and plumbing. Then concrete is poured into the steel frame to create all five sides (a floor and four walls) as one piece. Once the concrete sets, a crane lifts the module from the mold. The interior is sandblasted, the walls are painted, and the doors, furniture, and plumbing and electrical fixtures are installed. "We have about 70 manufacturing plants around the country and we will move as close to the building location as we can," says Hornberger. "We transport the cells by tractor trailer and move them into place with anything from your hydraulic cranes up to the 235-ton cranes." The cells arrive at the construction site with bunks, sinks, mirrors whatever the facility specifies for the interior - already built in. In addition, a concrete balcony piece is cast as part of the cell module. This way, when the cells are stacked next to each other they create not only a row of housing, but also the tiers that inmates and correctional officers walk on. "That balcony is cast on the floor piece of the cell, and then cantilevered, which means it's suspended using the rest of the piece, so that you can walk on it,"Hornberger explains. "It's part of the cell. Those pieces can also create a dayroom floor for the facility. We can stack the modules and their balconies up to eight pieces tall."  Stacking the cells Precast construction, while mostly used to build new facilities, is also an option for creating additions to existing prisons and detention centers. One of Oldcastle's newest projects is expanding two Colorado medium-security prisons. The Bent County Correctional Facility and Kit Carson Correctional Facility will both add 360 cells, with each cell housing two inmates. "This is a very popular form of cell construction," says architect David Boehm, a principal with DLR Group, an architectural firm that specializes in justice facilities and is also in charge of designing the Bent County and Kit Carson projects. "It's typically more cost effective than trying to build a cell out of masonry. It's more cost effective than pouring a cell in place, since the ability to precast at a site allows companies to use labor at their cost versus perhaps union wages at a site." 
A crane moves a module into place Boehm has experience designing prisons with precast cells, masonry cells, and a third construction process that utilizes steel-panelized cells, which involves pre-fabricating cells at a factory and then shipping them in parts to a construction site, where they are then assembled. Boehm says the best choice for constructing a facility really depends on the project. "In really small projects precast isn't economical because once it goes below a certain number of cells, it's very expensive to bring precast cells to the site. We always say economy in numbers, and the size of the project has quite a bit to do with it," he says. Precast construction can lower overall costs because shipping a single precast cell cuts down on the number of pieces to be shipped, which leads to lower shipping costs and less erection time. Precast cells are made inside factories year-round, regardless of weather, which can become a setback on a construction site where workers must take the day off because of rain or snow. The cells also go up quickly, with 15 to 20 cells being built per day. Utilizing precast cells is sometimes preferred by communities that have less land to build upon and are tight on space. 
Exterior view Perhaps the most important asset a precast cell offers is the security of a single piece concrete structure. "These are walls without any seams or joints, so there is no way to get through or to hide any contraband in the walls," explains Hornberger. "Also, the actual walls are uniform, so if you produce one cell or 500 cells they're all identical. This way, the correctional officers will see the exact same cell everywhere and will know what everything is supposed to look like." The upcoming Colorado construction is Oldcastle's first prison project in the state. The company hopes the Bent County and Kit Carson projects will lead to more precast work in Colorado and surrounding states. With hundreds of thousands of precast detention cells already in place, it looks like the growth of precast in corrections will remain on the rise. Related Resources: The National Precast Concrete Association Case study: Using precast walls for a round jail More on Oldcastle Precast Modular Group |
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