A hare's pace
Tunnel form system propels apartments to August completion

By Sam Barnes

A four-building apartment complex at the south gates of Louisiana State University is flashing forward with the help of a unique concrete form system.

MAPP Construction Inc. of Baton Rouge is leap-frogging over several steps in the construction process by using specially manufactured tunnel forms to build concrete units ranging from efficiency to four-bedroom apartments. Each of the buildings contains eight floors.

Ultimately, two-thirds of the 340 apartment units will be constructed by August as part of the $36.7 million Southgate Towers complex owned by R. W. Day & Associates of Baton Rouge. The remainder of the units will be completed by year's end, just a little more than 14 months after breaking ground.

advertisement

Project manager Donnie LaCombe attributed much of the project's success to the tunnel forms being installed by High Rise Concrete Systems of Grand Prairie, Texas.

"The forms are sized to the different unit configurations," LaCombe said. "We're using two forms in an L shape - one forms the back side of the wall and half of the ceiling and the other makes the other wall and the remaining half of the ceiling."

The forms are rolled and lifted into place, and have all the electrical and plumbing rough-ins prepared prior to concrete placement.

Crews at the site have been able to pour concrete for as many as five units in a day, a feat that would not have otherwise been possible.

"Dozens of these forms had to be prefabricated and sent to the site, since each apartment unit requires four forms that must stay in place for seven days," LaCombe added. "We can't wait seven days for curing, so we must have enough forms to keep the process going."

Crews prepare each unit by erecting reinforcing steel mats, then lift and place each form around the mats. Both the walls and floors measure 7 in. thick, and balconies are also being cast using the form system.

High Rise Concrete is furnishing and installing the form system, as well as placing the concrete for each unit with concrete supplied by Dolese Concrete of Baton Rouge.

The form materials are shipped from other sources and fabricated on site.

This is one of the first applications of the form system in Louisiana and was specified by the owner as well as the architect, Steinberg Design Collaborative of Houston.

"It's been great," LaCombe said. "It's not quite tilt-up or poured in place, but a mixture of those systems. I think we've all seen it before, but there was still a learning curve."

He added that the expense of building the units with concrete may be a little higher "but that is justified when the apartments open a few months earlier."

Three of the four apartment buildings are being connected in a "U" shape around a central landscaped courtyard, while the fourth building will be freestanding. All of the buildings will reach 100 ft. tall and will have a stucco exterior to match several of the academic buildings at LSU.

"All of the walls and ceilings are exposed, so we'll 'float them out' with gypsum and texture them to match the texture of the non-structural interior walls," LaCombe said.

"The finishes are fairly high end. There are granite tops for the kitchens and baths being shipped from Turkey. All the kitchens will have an island where you can sit and all of the floors are made with stained concrete."

A bituminous built-up roof system will have a clay tile façade to match LSU academic buildings.

In conjunction with the apartment buildings, the MAPP crew has completed an eight-level precast parking garage that physically connects to two of the apartment buildings. Tindall Corp. of Biloxi, Miss., cast and erected both structural and architectural precast for the garage.

Poured-in-place concrete was used for the garage deck surface.

"A two-story clubhouse made of steel and metal studs will support a health club and a retail center, and will also be finished by August," LaCombe said. The clubhouse will have an exterior stucco skin similar to the apartment complex and will be connected to one of the apartment buildings by a structural steel pedestrian bridge at the second floor.

Elevators will be dispersed throughout the complex, with six in the apartment buildings, two in the clubhouse and one in the parking garage.

Other work at the site required the installation of drainage catch basins and pipe to divert stormwater to a nearby bayou, the addition of a turning lane to a nearby access road, and the construction of a swimming pool and cabana in the courtyard area. Gulf South Piling of Jefferson drove 1,000 precast concrete and timber piles up to 100 ft. deep as foundation for the complex.

Another contract should be awarded this summer to build a fifth building that will offer luxury condominiums for sale. Expected completion is December 2005.

Currently, more than 1,100 multi-family units in Hammond, Shreveport, Houma and Baton Rouge are owned and managed by R. W. Day, in addition to two residential subdivisions.

Useful Source

For more details and an architect's rendering, go to: http://www.southgatetowerscondos.com/