August 13 & 14 & September 18, 2008

I recently befriended Matt Easley, the Senior Superintendent for the Ladd Tower
which is being built at Columbia and Broadway near the park blocks.
He offered me a tour of the building since I'm engineer.
This was really exciting for me - read on.





The building will be 23 stories tall. All post-tensioned slab.
We took the outside elevator up to the 15th floor and then ladders
the rest of the way. This is the 15th floor.





16th floor still has shoring jacks, as it takes 28 days for
the concrete to reach its design strength. Although, the jacks can be removed before the full curing time.





These are cantilevered "roll-out" compartments. We walked out
onto them.








The elevator "core". The walls are 22" thick. Most of the time
I don't design over 12" thick for industrial size walls.
The core is the primary lateral support for the building during
a seismic event.





17th floor. More heavy duty shoring is required here
than just the jacks, as the concrete cures.
They are building a floor EVERY 6 DAYS on this building.
Timewise, that is amazing!!








19th floor. Reinforcing and PT cables all over.








Extra reinforcing where a crane is attached during construction.





Whoa. I think I overcame my fear of heights on this jobsite visit.





An historic building (house) was removed from the corner below.
It currently sits 2 blocks up the street, and will be wheeled
back to this spot on October 25th. Come on down and watch the move!
The wheels on the trailor are computer controlled to prevent
excessive elevation changes in one wheel to the next.
Trailor has a 4 degree turn radius.



CARRIAGE HOUSE AFTER MOVE - NOV 2008








Column reinforcement.










Stud rails, which serve the purpose of taking a portion of the floor shear into the column, thus eliminating increased slab thickness at the column locations for shear transfer.













August 14th - the 'wet deck'. Pouring the concrete.










The concrete pump.







Forms around the core for the next level.
















View from the last ladder, to the top deck.




Notice that the exterior finishes (windows) are applied
as the building is still being built structurally.





September 18 - me on the wet deck. :)




Notice the worker below installing the handrails. He is harnessed in.







Building curved window framing with metal studs.







No. 11 size rebar. I haven't ever specified bars this large.
There are no. 18 size bars in this building's footing, which is
8 ft thick! The thickest I've ever designed is 3 ft, for the
Cambridge Condos over on 24th and west Burnside.










Workers in the core.
















Handrails were being installed.
My office actually designed these rails.





Matt sent me the following photos. The first three were taken
from the crane. The fourth is a photo of the crane being built up.
The last three were taken in early Oct, of the workers installing
the last manhoist stop on level 24.

Thanks again for the tours, Matt!































~~~