The San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (SFPUC) Building (illustrated in Fig. 1) provides an excellent case study for the integration of (Building Information Management) BIM to achieve a sustainable building. This building required carbon accounting for construction materials and construction activities, and is LEED Platinum certified. Figures 2 through 4 show various views of the core walls of the building that incorporate vertical post-tensioning.

Awards and certifications

AIA San Francisco Design Award
GSA Design Honor Award for Architecture
GSA Design Award Citation in Sustainability

Awards and certifications

LEED Platinum
2007 Architectural Merit Award, Arizona Chapter of American Concrete Institute

When a wooden floating dock in the Port of San Diego, San Diego, CA, had deteriorated to the point of having to be torn down, the owners chose to replace it with a floating dock assembled from precast concrete modules, the durability offered by the precast dock was a key consideration, and the modular design allowed a few standard-sized sections to be used in the creation of a variety of configurations.

This large, mixed-use development project had an extremely tight construction schedule—the contractor had to place walls very quickly. As shown in Fig.1, shotcrete provided the solution: walls used one-sided formwork, shotcrete was applied, and then the free surface was finished by hand. Forms were then moved to the next wall and reused. With a trailer pump on site twice a week, between 80 and 130 yd³ (61 and 99 m³) of concrete could be shot in an average 8- to 10-hour day.

The Navajo Nation needed a new replacement facility for health care. The Indian Health Service wanted a building that would require a minimum of maintenance while outlasting its predecessor, constructed in 1938.The exterior colors and stepped-back shape are reminiscent of the surrounding natural landscape. The result is the Ft. Defiance Indian Hospital (FDIH) in Ft. Defiance, Arizona.

Nestled along scenic Highway 1 and adjacent to the Monterrey Bay National Marine Sanctuary, the CEMEX cement plant in the coastal community of Davenport, Calif., consistently strives to “work in harmony with nature.”CEMEX Davenport claimed the overall environmental award prize at the Seventh Annual Cement Industry Environment and Energy Awards ceremony in 2008 thanks to its repeat win in the Land Stewardship category and boosted by its finalist status in the Environmental Performance and Energy Efficiency categories.

When tasked with building a new library that would accommodate a growing population and its need for a more technologically savvy and environmentally friendly space, the City of Highland, California, began examining a host of options. With the Highland Sam J. Racadio Library and Environmental Learning Center, named in honor of the former city manager, Sam J. Racadio who dedicated 18 years of service to the city, Highland officials constructed in a library that honored his memory and looked toward with the future of Highland.