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Contractors working on a 92,889 m2 (1 m ft2 residential development in downtown Chicago are set to complete concrete pouring operations almost three months ahead of schedule, thanks largely to a tailor-made formwork system supplied by Doka. The Heritage at Millennium Park is a 190 m (625 ft) tall landmark along the Michigan Avenue skyline. Comprising the 28-storey Park Plaza and the 57-storey Skyline Tower, it combines a curved glass façade and detailed exterior concrete architecture with four existing six-storey façades built during the 1920s.
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The Heritage at Millennium Park, Chicago: Doka developed a tailormade
formwork concept for Walsh Construction based on SKE automatic climbers. |
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The structural design calls for the shaft walls, the floor slabs with upturned and downturned spandrel beams and exterior columns to be poured monolithically to minimize construction joints. In addition, a combination of concave and convex shapes and straight transition zones demands extremely accurate planning.
To accommodate these requirements and avoid the need to set inside panels by hand, Doka and the main contractor, Walsh Construction, together have developed a climbing formwork system with steel panels that open on one, two and, in some places, three hinges. This allows the entire formwork unit to be rolled back and climb vertically without disturbing the freshly poured concrete.
The cores at the center of the structure are formed one level ahead of the slab using Doka Top 50 large-area wall formwork gangs and Doka SKE 100 self-climbing
platforms. A concrete placing boom climbs together with the core forms, delivering an uninterrupted supply of concrete. The four-man crew has gotten the stripping and re-erection cycle down to just 1.5 hours - a record for any highrise project Doka has been involved with in the U.S.
Dokaflex 20 is used for all typical floor slabs applications. Walsh also chose 10 Kip/Leg shoring for support of beams, ramps, high floors and the helix at the parking structure, and Framax framed panel formwork for all retaining walls and shear walls, the columns in the basement level and the entire parking
structure below level 9.
Concrete work started on 2 January 2003. By year-end, the high-rise tower was up to level 37 and the low-rise was almost complete.
Mike Hoge is the Superintendent for Walsh construction. He says, "Maintaining our 3-day-cycle per
floor and considering some additional time for changes in the top floor layouts and various heights within the upper levels of the tower we should top out at this building by May 2004."
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"The key to success is the use of automatic climbing formwork together with steel forms for the entire outside
of the building with all reveals and details." says Mike Hoge, Superintendent (left), with Karen Latus, Project Engineer (center) and Roy Eikeland, General Superintendent. According to Roy, "We felt confident working with Doka as our forming partner that, together, we would solve all of our forming problems." |
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Contractors: Walsh Construction
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