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

When it opens in 2023, a new health care facility for MedStar Georgetown College Hospital in Washington, D.C., will attribute the hottest clinical and technological innovations.

The new 477,213-square-foot clinical and surgical constructing will characteristic 156 patient rooms, 32 test rooms and a rooftop helipad with immediate accessibility to 31 functioning rooms. An intraoperative MRI technique with a ceiling-mounted rail system connecting the diagnostic space and adjacent working rooms will bring the MRI magnet immediately to the patient. In addition, the project involves a 600-car or truck, down below-quality parking garage, 18 elevators and 6 acres of new inexperienced room.

The web-site is on the land of the former Kober-Cogan Setting up, which was shut down in May well 2010 soon after the discovery of mildew in the setting up and formerly had housed the hospital’s psychiatry division. 

That presented exceptional problems for the project staff, led by Bethesda, Maryland-based Clark Development. Miles of water utility strains, lots of of which had been not documented, had been functioning specifically less than the place of the new pavilion to feed the two MedStar Georgetown University Hospital and the Georgetown University campus properties. The undertaking team had to relocate these utilities outdoors of the developing footprint to allow for the undertaking to start out.

“The Clark crew built and engineered a 250-foot-extended utility bridge to help chilled h2o and electrical solutions from the central utility plant to the existing MedStar Georgetown Clinic,” said Bradley Hunter, project govt at Clark Design Team. “The bridge set up expected near coordination with mechanical and electrical contractors who mounted the utilities on prefabricated racks which have been then hung from steel beams measuring 60 toes, letting excavation to get started under.”

Clark Construction, along with architects HKS and Shalom Baranes Associates, assembled a BIM model of the present utilities. As style and design progressed and the basic structure and caisson destinations were established, “we performed additional borings at all caisson areas and more informed the BIM excavation product,” reported Hunter.

This original action permitted the Clark team to improved notify the charge product with respect to deep foundations and to get started revising the excavation system. With almost 1,000 piles to install for guidance for the duration of excavation, Clark recorded the true soil and utility circumstances encountered in real-time with each pile and input the data into the BIM product. This tremendously increased Clark’s comprehension of the site and authorized to continue on to revise and resequence the excavation approach in progress of the area crews, claimed Hunter. 

“At the completion of pile installation, we were being equipped to have a remarkably thorough profile of the envisioned excavation effectively in progress of the last period of excavation,” said Hunter. “With this information and facts, we have been in a position to create mitigation procedures in an work to decrease impacts to the critical path of the challenge.”

Staff turns to technological innovation on website

Clark performed a preliminary survey with regular survey devices, this kind of as the Leica MS50, which combines overall station performance, GNSS connectivity, digital imaging and 3D laser scanning in a solitary instrument. The 3D know-how performed checks of slab edges, precast concrete, joints and ground flatness. The technologies also coordinates present properties to accomplish tie-ins with the façade.

Immediately after finishing and placing survey regulate details about the website, the workforce started the scanning and layout method, explained Kathleen Lavelle, task supervisor at Clark Development Team.

“For 3D laser scanning, we use our Leica MS50 all over again which has whole scanning abilities. We use our survey manage details to tie the scanning information into website coordinates. Just after scanning is entire, Leica’s Infinity software is utilised to clean up up the scan,” reported Lavelle. “This can be exported to diverse file formats depending on the software being applied to get the job done with the details.”

The study staff utilized Leica MultiWorx, an add-on application to Autocad Civil 3D. This scan information can be applied to create current problems and as-constructed drawings as required.

Running an influx of people today

Thanks to its spot adjacent to a university and health care heart, the Clark crew experienced to consider of methods to handle the stream of college students, patients and website visitors, specifically early in the COVID-19 pandemic to account for social distancing suggestions.

To do this, the design team developed a non permanent pedestrian bridge to sustain obtain together the east facet of the jobsite. Moreover, an on-internet site batch plant, developing additional than 35,000 cubic yards of concrete, assisted with traffic congestion by minimizing the range of deliveries to the task web-site. The plant eliminated an believed 3,500 vehicles off the road as perfectly as making certain concrete high-quality on web page, according to Lavelle.

Eliminating vans from the highway also helped minimize sounds level, a different problem as the construction website is in close proximity to various residential neighborhoods, stated Andree Yaap, venture executive at Clark Development Group.

Clark also worked intently with the HKS and proprietor to appraise which project features could be produced offsite. Working with a official scoring and evaluation method, the group selected components to prefabricate dependent on what would deliver the most benefit to the undertaking, mentioned Yaap.

The challenge contains much more than 700 prefabricated components, which include 156 lavatory pods, working room ceilings, affected individual headwalls, electrical rooms, medical rooms, MEP skids and racks, and inside partitioning, stated Yaap.

Building features had been created throughout the region, with rest room pods becoming designed in Texas, operating home ceilings currently being created in Oregon, headwalls getting constructed in Oklahoma and wall panels getting created in Virginia, mentioned Yaap.

“Clark’s endeavours have aided to expedite schedules and cut down charges,” said Yaap. “Other gains include enhanced excellent ensuing from assembly in a managed setting, the reduction of development activity on internet site and a reduction in sounds degrees, neighborhood targeted traffic and congestion.”