The state-of-the-art, $96 million Chemical and Materials Sciences Building recently completed by McCarthy Building Companies, Inc. for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) has earned the Department of Energy Office of Science 2011 Excellence Award for Project Management Improvement.
Each year the Secretary of Energy’s Project Management Excellence Awards Program recognizes exceptional teams and individuals that demonstrate exemplary results through resourceful, inventive thinking and application. The awards also recognize performance of outstanding program or project management measured by their success.
The Chemical and Materials Sciences Building marked many “firsts” for ORNL, including utilization of the Construction Management at Risk (CMR) project delivery method and the application of Building Information Modeling (BIM). With CMR, McCarthy provided preconstruction and construction services and was engaged with the owner, architect and consultants from design through construction and until the facility became operational, which lowered the owner’s overall risk on the project.
In addition to the utilization of CMR, McCarthy’s implementation of BIM significantly improved construction performance by creating 3D mock-ups of piping and structural components. By applying BIM during preconstruction, the project team was able to resolve more than 7,000 utility interferences. BIM improved the safety and quality performance by eliminating overhead work through offsite manufacturing of building components “Using BIM technology made significant contributions to improving overall project management, as well as building design, construction, safety and future maintenance operations” said Gary Bloom, UT-Battelle project manager. “McCarthy’s team played a key role in the success of this project.”
McCarthy completed more than 600,000 safe construction hours of work and also completed the project six months ahead of schedule and 34 percent larger than anticipated (160,427 total square feet) due to effective project management.
Bloom added that the benefits and success of BIM on this project resulted in the adoption of BIM utilization for all future large scale capital projects at ORNL.
In addition to this award, the project also received the ASHRAE Region-VI Technology Award for excellence of energy efficiency design and was nominated for the national ASHRAE award. Energy performance is 30.2 percent better than required. The installation of solar panels generates 31,356 KWh of power. The project received $60.6 million of Recovery Act funding, which expedited construction and created over 208 jobs.
The Chemical and Materials Sciences Building is also on track to achieve LEED® Gold certification from the U.S. Green Building Council, which supports ORNL’s emphasis on energy efficiency in both practice and purpose. Through its research, ORNL has pioneered a number of technologies that improve energy efficiency and lower energy costs. The new research building incorporates some of the advances developed on campus.
Finalization of concept design, design and construction documents and construction administration was provided by Cannon Design of St. Louis. Original concept design was completed by Flad Architects of Madison, Wisc. McCarthy utilized local tradespeople for construction. Contractors on the project included Gem Technologies, Ozark Steel Fabrication, Kelpe Contracting, T.U. Parks Construction Co., Gate Precast, Payne Crest Electric, John E. Green Mechanical, Odom Construction, Escola Roofing, Trainor Glass, Johnson Controls and Thyssen Krupp Elevator.
About Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) (www.ornl.gov) is the Department of Energy’s (DOE) (www.energy.gov) largest science and energy laboratory. Managed since April 2000 by a partnership of the University of Tennessee and Battelle, ORNL has a staff of more than 4,600 and annual funding exceeds $1.65 billion. The laboratory is home to the Spallation Neutron Source, the world’s most powerful neutron source for materials research; and Jaguar, one of the world’s fastest supercomputers. ORNL supports the DOE’s mission with expertise in six major scientific areas: neutron science, energy, high-performance computing, systems biology, materials science at the nanoscale, and national security.
About McCarthy
McCarthy Building Companies, Inc. is one of the nation’s oldest and largest commercial construction companies. Founded in 1864, the firm is currently the 8th largest builder in America (Engineering News-Record, May 2012) and has been building in the science and technology market for more than 50 years. This resume of experience includes: research facilities; life sciences; nanotechnology; pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical processing; data centers; high containment labs (BSL-3, BSL-4 and Potent Compound); cleanrooms; agri-business; and biomedical facilities. In addition to the Department of Energy, McCarthy provides services throughout the federal sector, including the Department of Veterans Affairs, Department of Homeland Security, US Army Corps of Engineers, Naval Facilities Engineering Command and Indian Health Service. The company is working on government projects totaling $2.4 billion nationwide. Headquartered in St. Louis, McCarthy also has offices in Atlanta, Collinsville, Ill., Dallas, Houston, Phoenix, Albuquerque, Las Vegas, San Diego, Newport Beach, San Francisco and Sacramento. McCarthy is 100 percent employee owned.
