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DECEMBER 2019 | 9 PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY LAFARGE CANADA; SURESPAN STRUCTURES LTD. Concrete Concrete is pushing creativity boundaries by ROBIN BRUNET W ood as a multi-storey building component has made signifi- cant advances but is still limited by numerous factors. Steel is a mainstay of construction, but it occasionally suffers wild price fluctuations and avail- ability challenges. Concrete, on the other hand, is arguably the ultimate building material, a seemingly limitless resource whose many different forms – from cast-in-place to precast and prestressed – continue to dominate new construction in Canada. This is especially true as 2019 draws to a close and suppliers consider their activities for the year. "While the range of products has fundamentally remained the same, precast concrete products have evolved sig- nificantly, bringing dramatic improvements in the face of market expectation," says Zoran Stanojevic, director, technical sales, for the Surespan Group of Companies. "Specifically, reducing cost associated with heating and cooling with improved thermal per- formance of precast concrete cladding panels and improved manufacturing techniques, results in low- ered burden of envelope maintenance and longer life span of the entire building envelope. Similarly, precast concrete contributes to shortening the construction period at site, which reduces the initial cost of project as well as noise, pollution, and traffic congestions." Along with the heavy flow of work is the oppor- tunity for creativity as specified by architects. A good example of this is Surespan's work on Simon Fraser University's new five-storey, $116-million SE3P facility in Surrey. "For starters, every floor of this 16,000-square-metre concrete structure is five-metres high, which is very different from usual residential high-rise towers," says Stanojevic. But it's the facade that is eye-catching for pedes- trians: designed by Revery Architecture Inc. and constructed by Bird Construction, SE3P recently won the Canadian Precast/Prestressed Concrete Institute's 2018 CPCI Roy Willwerth Architectural Recognition award. The award goes to an architec- tural firm that has helped advance the Canadian precast prestressed concrete industry through its outstanding skills and creativity. The facade is composed of over 300 alternating strips of energy efficient, undulating framed precast concrete panels and reflective glass; together, they are meant to represent the circuit board imagery relating to the subject matter that will be taught within the building. The metallic sheen-like brilliance of the pre- cast concrete cladding panels, supplied by Surespan Structures, is a result of a unique concrete mix: Mexican white cement and white sand from Ontario. Surespan is continuing to push the creativity boundaries for concrete by creating black and white photo imaging for the front exterior walls panels of the new above-ground Jericho Reservoir in Langley, B.C. "We are using four- by 20-metre formliners to make this work," says Stanojevic. "The photos are sent to a specialist in the U.S. and the formliners Star Cast Queen Elizabeth II Planetarium, Edmonton, AB. SE3P facility, Simon Fraser University, Surrey, B.C. (CPCQA) CANADIAN PRECAST CONCRETE QUALITY ASSURANCE CERTIFICATION PROGRAM PROGRAM (CPCQA) CANADIAN PRECAST CONCRETE QUALITY ASSURANCE CERTIFICATION PROGRAM (CPCQA) CANADIAN PRECAST CONCRETE QUALITY ASSURANCE CERTIFICATION PROGRAM

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