After about 20 hours of continuous pouring, judges from Guinness World Records verified that the concrete pour at the $1 billion Wilshire Grand project in Los Angeles is the largest uninterrupted pour of slurry on record.
It took 208 trucks making as many as 10 deliveries each last weekend to complete the pour. In all, 21,000 cubic yards of concrete were poured to form the foundation for the 73-story tower.
The project, led by Turner Construction for developer Korean Air, includes office space, restaurants, retail, and 900 luxury hotel rooms. Scheduled to open in 2016, the tower will be the tallest building west of Chicago. AC Martin Partners is designing the 1,100-foot-tall tower, with Thornton Tomasetti as structural engineer.
Here are some of the pour’s impressive numbers:
• 19 pumps dispensed concrete into the pit through 13 hoses
• 24 temperature sensors provided hourly readings (the concrete should remain between 120 and 160 degrees)
• 45 degree water pumped through 100,000 feet of polyethylene hose snaked throughout the pit will help counteract the natural heating
• The concrete weighs some 82 million pounds
12:00 noon PST February 15, 2014
12:00 midnight PST February 15, 2014
Related Stories
| Mar 29, 2013
PBS broadcast to highlight '10 Buildings That Changed America'
WTTW Chicago, in partnership with the Society of Architectural Historians, has produced "10 Builidngs That Changed America," a TV show set to air May 12 on PBS.
| Mar 29, 2013
Shenzhen projects halted as Chinese officials find substandard concrete
Construction on multiple projects in Guangdong Province—including the 660-m Ping'an Finance Center—has been halted after inspectors in Shenzhen, China, have found at least 15 local plants producing concrete with unprocessed sea sand, which undermines building stabity.
| Mar 29, 2013
Pearce Brinkley Cease + Lee joins Clark Nexsen
Clark Nexsen, PC, headquartered in Norfolk, Va., has announced that the architecture firm Pearce Brinkley Cease + Lee (PBC+L) of Raleigh and Asheville, NC, has officially joined Clark Nexsen.
| Mar 29, 2013
Cuningham Group acquires NTD's healthcare practice, expands into key markets
The international design firm Cuningham Group Architecture, Inc. has announced that NTD Healthcare has the joined the company in a strategic expansion. A practice of NTD Architecture, NTD Healthcare joins Cuningham Group with three principals: Wayne Hunter, AIA, NCARB, ACHA and Phillip T. Soule, III, AIA, ACHA in San Diego, along with Maha Abou-Haidar, AIA in Phoenix.
| Mar 27, 2013
Small but mighty: Berkeley public library’s net-zero gem
The Building Team for Berkeley, Calif.’s new 9,500-sf West Branch library aims to achieve net-zero—and possibly net-positive—energy performance with the help of clever passive design techniques.
| Mar 27, 2013
RSMeans cost comparisons: college labs, classrooms, residence halls, student unions
Construction market analysts from RSMeans offer construction costs per square foot for four building types across 25 metro markets.
| Mar 26, 2013
Will Google Glass revolutionize the construction process?
An Australian architect is exploring the benefits of augmented reality in the design and construction process.
| Mar 24, 2013
World's tallest data center opens in New York
Sabey Data Center Properties last week celebrated the completion of the first phase of an adaptive reuse project that will transform the 32-story Verizon Building in Manhattan into a data center facility. When the project is completed, it will be the world's tallest data center.
| Mar 22, 2013
8 cool cultural projects in the works
A soaring opera center in Hong Kong and a multi-tower music center in Calgary are among the latest cultural projects.