J.F. White provided pre-construction consultation and construction management services to Harvard University for its proposed 5-story underground, 730-car capacity parking garage project on Oxford Street.
The Oxford Street parking facility was built using a perimeter concrete diaphragm wall, interior load bearing elements and a composite steel frame roof with a concrete slab on a metal pan deck. The Oxford Street project was especially challenging to manage because it was the first time that post-tensioned concrete was used in top-down construction of
a garage. To add to the management challenges, the Oxford Street project was located in the heart of a residential section of Cambridge with high levels of student and vehicle traffic.
The Oxford Street project also presented complicated logistics. J.F. White managed the three contractors on the project who had only a single access route to the project site through which all trucks and materials were moved more than 80 times each day. In order to manage the project, a series of 22 detailed phasing drawings were prepared by J.F. White to maintain a balance in the flow of work among the surface equipment, glory hole access, excavation, temporary ventilation, concrete placement, cure, and post-tensioning, resulting in maximum productivity and minimized overall schedule.
The Oxford Street project clearly demonstrates J.F. White's competency and solid management experience in terms of pre-planning, close coordination, and careful cooperation with adjacent contractors on a multi-disciplined, technically challenging project.