When officials with Kenner Discovery Health Sciences Academy set out to build a $31-million high school, they envisioned having the senior class graduate from the building this spring.

对于在新奥尔良郊区肯纳（Kenner）的团队中建造了125,000平方英尺自1980年代以来的教区。该团队依靠预制构造，设计辅助方法和细致的计划，以满足苛刻的时间表，同时在Unforgiven，Mucky Mocky土壤上建造了沉重的混凝土结构。

“Additionally, there were economic drivers that compressed the owner’s timeline. Therefore, during preconstruction, speed to completion was a focus for the team,” says Nicholas Moldaner, project executive for lead contractor Palmisano.

The Kenner Discovery project began in November 2018 and is scheduled for completion by late February, in time for seniors to move in by the end of March. The school was founded in 2013 with a limited number of grade levels and has added new grade levels and students every year since. The class of 2020 is Kenner Discovery’s first senior class.

The high school project is the first of a three-phase, decade-long plan to create an entirely new campus for pre-K through 12th grade. The second and third phases will consist of wings for middle and elementary schools.

On-Time Attendance

The construction team was able to reduce the overall project timeline by at least six months, including three months of preconstruction and three months of construction.

The contractor came in early on the project and worked with Sizeler Thompson Brown Architects in a design-assist capacity to complete construction documents. Through this approach, the project team was able to accelerate the seven-month preconstruction and 15-month construction schedules.

“随着在与学校利益相关者的初步编程会议期间的设计讨论，最初的设计概念和布局相当快地融合在一起。Sizeler Thompson Brown的负责人Brian Faucheux说：“具有类似学校课程和本地现场限制的经验有所帮助。

Weekly meetings between the design team, contractor, owner and major subcontractors facilitated cost savings by ensuring coordination and identifying construction issues as the design was finalized.

“The preconstruction collaborative planning process went well and ultimately saved time, money and reduced change orders in the field,” Faucheux says, adding that the team kept costs near level and total change orders at less than three-quarters of 1%.

Precast Efficiencies

使用预制混凝土是K-12学校建设的增长趋势，因为它可以节省成本和时间以及可持续性福利。

The contractor led an effort to evaluate the use of precast for the project’s structure in lieu of a more conventional stick-built, steel structure. “Ultimately, the erection speed and long-term resiliency of an all-concrete building drove the team to move forward with precast concrete as the building’s main structure,” Moldaner says.

与传统的现场勃起过程相比，预制的混凝土方法帮助加速工作超过六周，使项目持续时间减少了10％以上。

工作人员在68天内竖起了113,000平方英尺的预制结构。这包括539个预制混凝土单元（包括墙壁，横梁，柱子和双座），仅在11周以上。

Most of the mechanical and plumbing systems were also prefabricated. The HVAC ductwork and system components were built into a series of racks in a controlled environment a few miles from the project, and then were installed on site. “This prefab process resulted in higher quality work and faster install durations, effectively taking HVAC off the critical path of the project schedule,” Moldaner says.

The one exception in the new precast design was the school library, which features a lighter steel structure and a colorful exterior metal-panel skin to stand out as a special element among the all-concrete building.

The architect used varied textures and colors in the precast—including etched, sandblasted and ribbed form-liner—to add interest and contrast to the flat-paneled exterior.

“These combinations of exterior precast and metal panel, texture and color, aluminum and glass were important to bring the building to life—to reflect the vibrancy of the Discovery community spirit that it will house,” Faucheux says.

利用学校建筑预制混凝土,opposed to a simpler structure like a parking garage, required significant collaboration with the precast engineer to accommodate architectural details and finishes, according to the project’s structural engineer, Schrenk Endom & Flanagan LLC. The company worked closely with the contractor and the precast supplier, Tindall Corp., during the design phase to help save time and money.

Schrenk Endom＆Flanagan的结构工程师Stephannie Williams说：“由于该项目的时间很短，因此必须在设计团队发布施工文件之前开发预制店图纸。”

Sections of the building constructed from structural steel would need to connect directly to the precast concrete.

“This means we had to focus on early coordination between the steel and concrete portions of the building to make sure all the pieces came together during construction,” Williams says. All told, the structure included 4,500 cu yd of concrete and 163 tons of steel.

Mucking About

Although precast concrete offered several benefits, the use of this option for such a large project—atop marshy south Louisiana soils—required extensive planning and careful execution.

沉降是新奥尔良地区的重大挑战，因此支持基础的重量和将在其顶部的混凝土结构对项目的结构设计至关重要。威廉姆斯说：“我们在非常贫穷的土壤上放了一座沉重的混凝土建筑。”

肯纳（Kenner）的粘土状土壤是该地区最具挑战性的土壤之一。由于肯纳（Kenner）在1950年代后期的发展之前一直是沼泽地，因此土壤崎gy弱且对建筑的不利。在州和联邦土壤调查中，土壤甚至收到了自己的分类“肯纳·马克”。

Because of these conditions, the project team needed to give special consideration to supporting the structure and anticipating any settlement that would occur between it and the surrounding area.

The team used roughly 1,200 70-ft-long composite timber piles to support the structure. “The use of composite piles is not unique in this region, but they are not commonly used in other parts of the country,” Williams says.

Sustainability Goals

项目团队通过学校首席执行官Patty Glaser的意见设计了学校布局。技术对于她对新校园的愿景以及有利于协作和互动的室内空间至关重要。格拉瑟说：“我们是杰斐逊教区最大的学校之一，即使不是最大的学校。”“因此，我的目标是建立长期的可持续性。”

新校园将需要容纳肯纳发现的持续指数增长。当学校于2013年首次开业时，它为420名学生提供了精选水平的学生。如今，它为1,850名Pre-K年级至12年级的学生提供服务，并拥有200多名教师。同样，今年春天，肯纳（Kenner Discovery）与Ochsner Health System合作，将在Jefferson Highway开设第二个小学校园，这意味着将有两所低级学校进入中学和高中。

The high school will feature a three-story academic wing with 53 classrooms and 11,495 sq ft of administrative facilities, an outdoor plaza, a teaching kitchen and paved concrete parking for 316 vehicles.

由于Kenner Discovery专门研究健康科学，因此新建筑包括九个科学实验室，包括带三张床以及传统生物学，化学和物理实验室的医院模拟室。

Until now, the school has been operating on three separate campuses across Kenner, including modular high school classrooms on the site of the new campus. Once all three phases are complete, the school will be able to consolidate these campuses at the new location.

The campus is on a 20-acre site the school is leasing from Jefferson Parish. Despite being New Orleans suburbs, Kenner and the surrounding areas of Jefferson Parish are relatively urban, so a 20-acre parcel of land is a rare find. “It’s a considerable piece of land,” Glaser says.

Faucheux团队惊喜杜说ring a project walk-through to discover that the school offered a framed view of the adjacent park, its lakes and pavilion. “We knew the proximity of the school to the park was a big plus, and we oriented the entrance lobby to take advantage of it. But capturing the picture-perfect view of the park setting from the second-level balcony crossing was special,” Faucheux says.

In August, all four high school grades will move into the new building, and middle-school students will be able to use the building’s cafeteria and elective classrooms while completing their core academic coursework in modular classrooms.

长期计划是在大约五年内增加一个中学的翅膀，并在大约八年内增加较低学校的翅膀。这些翅膀分别将花费约1000万至1200万美元。计划还包括在明年的某个时候建造一个单独的，约500万至600万美元的健身房。

“It’s going to be an exciting place to come to every day to learn and create,” Glaser says.