Northeast Office Building
Northeast Region, U.S.
Shawn Martin | Construction Option
Dr. Esther Obonyo
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The Northeast Office Building project is a renovation job to modernize the 1.9 million square foot business and office building. The owner of the building, General Services Administration (GSA), established a plan in 2008 to upgrade critical building systems, restore interior aesthetics, and improve structural deterioration. The proposed renovation was divided into 8 phases spanning over 13 years, and is estimated to cost $750 million. To date, Phase I, II, and III are substantially completed. Phase 4 is currently in progress and was projected to reach substantial completion in December of 2017.
This report will describe the four areas of analyses that have been executed and the procedure in which they were researched to produce the best results. The analyses include three construction depth analyses, one critical issues research analysis, and two breadth analyses.
ANALYSIS I
The first construction analysis includes a high-level of BIM implementation into the Northeast Office Building. This analysis dives into the lack of BIM modeling and BIM use for Phase 4 of the Northeast Building project. The main purpose of this analysis was to research and characterize significant changes within the project that could be resolved from a higher level of BIM Implementation prior to beginning construction. Schedule calculations and cost/contract calculations have been completed to determine if this analysis would positively impact the project.
ANALYSIS II
The second construction analysis is based on prefabrication for the interior wall partitions. This construction depth includes an acoustical breadth of the new prefabricated partitions. The purpose of this analysis is to expedite the scheduling process for many activities that succeed the interior partitions for the Northeast Office Building while enhancing safety and congestions on the site for other activities being performed. This analysis also includes a schedule and cost impact analysis to evaluate if the proposed idea will be beneficial for the renovation project.
ANALYSIS III
The last construction analysis is a substitution of the FCU mechanical system to a chilled beam system. This construction depth also includes a mechanical breadth for the demand of the new chilled beam system. Within this analysis, research will be performed to determine a secondary system to perform the duties of heating the building during heating days, which cannot be sustained through the use of a chilled beam system. Identical to the other analysis, schedule and cost impact analyses have been calculated to provide evidence for a positive or negative impact for the Northeast Office Building.
ANALYSIS IV
The critical issues analysis will research the effects of completing the design to 100% prior to construction verse leaving the design unfinished while starting construction. The point of this research topic is to provide evidence for the importance of completing the design of the renovation prior to construction taking place. Significant amount of changes have resulted from the lack of design completion for the Northeast Office Building, which could be resolved by alternate solutions such as virtual mock-ups or spending more money to complete the project’s design.