The 2.3-acre waterfront construction site for Charleston, S.C.’s $100-million International African American Museum (IAAM) is often referred to as “hallowed ground,” and rightfully so.

Beginning in the late 1760s, the site was part of Gadsden’s Wharf, the disembarkation point for tens of thousands of enslaved Africans brought to the U.S. until federal law shut down the slave trade in 1808. As many as 80% of African Americans alive today can trace their ancestry to those brought ashore at the Charleston wharf, making it, in the words of historian Henry Louis Gates, “ground zero” for Black history.

Elijah Heyward, IAAM’s chief operating officer, says that while the museum’s story could be told anywhere, “the very Charleston and South Carolina story that is rooted in the impact of this sacred site is most significant here, and we are grateful to have the honor of purpose attached to our location.”

适当地，两层楼的41,800平方英尺的博物馆在9月结束时，从字面上且形象上会轻轻地踩在现场。Pei Cobb Freed＆Partners首席设计师Matteo Milani只有18列支持丹麦砖砌的钢制钢框架结构，将博物馆描述为“漂浮” 13英尺的人行人广场，将相邻的花园连接起来并提供对库库河的无障碍景观和大西洋之外。

“The site is the essence of the design,” adds Milani, whose firm collaborated on the design with Moody Nolan of Columbus, Ohio. “It’s clear that this is a unique building for a unique location.”

尽管可能是神圣的，但该网站仍然为Brownstone Construction Group和Turner Construction的建筑管理团队提出了一些常规挑战，该团队于2019年7月开始在大约5850万美元的项目上进行工作。

Brownstone project manager Bobby Teachey says recent development on adjacent sites provided some clues about what the project team would encounter as it prepared to excavate up to 15 ft deep for the foundation system. With only 12 ft separating the excavation edge from an aging seawall and the Cooper River, the site’s water table lay only 3 ft below the surface.

为了使饱和的底物适合施工，现场承包商的海湾溪流构造查尔斯顿首先驱动了78个60英尺长的板桩增援部队（总计180 linear ft），与海堤相比堆在工作地点周围。然后，机组人员安装了一个完整的脱水系统，将装有石头的沟渠与管道和井点相结合。

该发掘将揭示许多无证建筑基础和数百年历史的木材堆积物，曾经用来稳定沼泽地。然后开始教导只开玩笑地称之为“有趣的部分” - 驾驶超过290 75至90英尺，14英寸14英寸。SQ混凝土粉底基础堆积通过有味的，类似Quicksand的“ Pluff Mud”到粉笔上库珀麦尔。

总体而言，Teachey说：“该网站达到了期望”，几乎没有惊喜。他还认为，脱水系统是通过夏季和秋天缺乏飓风和其他通常威胁查尔斯顿的大型风暴的地方，帮助维持基金会的进步。在一个多雨的周末刚好超过3英寸之后，Teachey补充说：“挖掘的地点是在星期一午餐时抽水了，我们已经准备好了。”

Another benefit was Brownstone-Turner’s application of lean construction practices, such as utilizing a pile fabricator located roughly a mile away. Pairs of piles were delivered throughout the day, typically arriving in time to be queued up for driving.

“We drove about 14 piles a day, and there were never any staging issues,” Teachey says, noting that communication with residents of adjacent high-rise condominiums largely averted noise and vibration complaints. Perimeter vibration monitors recorded no excessive readings, “except when a squirrel bumped one,” Teachey says with a laugh.

相关链接 Charleston Museum Project "More Than Just Another Job"

With the foundation topped with pile caps interconnected with cast-in-place beams, the process of implementing IAAM’s innovative light-touch surface structure began. Framed with 1,110 tons of long-span steel beams, the 426-ft-long, 84-ft-wide building is supported on two rows of columns arranged in a 48-ft-sq grid. Each column has a 5-ft-dia core of reinforced 5,000-psi concrete and is clad with the same oyster shell tabby finish being used for most of the pedestrian plaza.

由于博物馆的外围悬臂15英尺，距圆柱中心10 5/8英寸，横梁结合了¾英寸。Teachey说的向上的倾斜度正在逐渐升级，按照外墙的添加超过161,000块砖。

垂直运动的量确实需要褐砂石转移器来重新安装该项目的某些内部工作，例如重新安排第一级的32,000平方英尺的内部灰泥天花板，直到2月，届时将安装大多数外部砌体。

“We didn’t want to risk having to do rework on the ceiling as the camber comes out, and the change doesn’t affect the overall schedule,” Teachey says.

Outpacing the Pandemic

With safety protocols implemented as the spread of COVID-19 accelerated in March, the IAAM project never had a coronavirus-related shutdown. Indeed, Teachey says the outbreak affected the project’s supply chains far more than its people.

“We were in a good place having locked in our major material orders, but there were concerns about getting the bricks over from Denmark,” he says. “Thanks to good work with our suppliers and distributors, the bricks arrived on time by both air and sea.”

The Brownstone-Turner team is currently installing drywall for the museum galleries and the 15,000-sq-ft penthouse level that will contain offices and mechanical equipment. Other work on tap for the coming months includes adding wood trim and glass for the overlooks at the museum’s waterfront balconies and installing twin monumental staircases that will bring visitors up from the glass-enclosed plaza level into the double-height sky-lit atrium.

To complement the IAAM’s indoor exhibits and programs, the African Ancestors Memorial Garden will incorporate a variety of low-country landscape elements as well as a reflecting pool to signify the edge of Gadsden’s Wharf as it was at the beginning of the 1800s. “The garden advances the idea of our museum experience being buttressed as a site of memory,” Heyward says.

As the IAAM begins to transition from construction to exhibit design in anticipation of the scheduled early 2022 opening, Dale Collier, Brownstone president, believes the collaboration that brought the museum from concept to reality is a fitting complement to its role of sharing the unique and often unappreciated history of the African American experience.

“Our shared construction knowledge and regional experience made the difference,” he says. “We knew the conditions we might encounter and the players involved and the need to have good communication with everyone involved.”

特纳（Turner）卡罗来纳州（Carolinas）运营副总裁兼总经理马克·登特（Mark Dent）表示：“在此地点，将在此地点进行此类博物馆。”“尽管我们不断计划出现意外情况，但我们的第一重点一直是建筑物所代表的内容以及我们为何提出。”

That includes ensuring involvement by Charleston’s construction community, with more than 30 local contractors involved with the project.

“Our museum belongs to the citizens of Charleston, who have contributed their time, hopes and resources to bring our vision to reality,” Heyward says. “We would not exist without our invaluable partners.”