Goodwill - Ohana Career and Learning Center

Client: Goodwill Industries of Hawaii

Architect: Durrant-Media Five

Completion Year: 2010

Size: 30,000 square feet

Construction Cost: $11.2 Million

The Goodwill Oahu Ohana Career and Learning Center was completed in April 2010 by the team of Constructors Hawaii Inc. (CHI) and architects from Durrant-Media Five. A new two-story, precast concrete, 30,000-square-foot building was designed to house a charter school, adult day care, and the Goodwill Retail Store, including classrooms, office space, meeting rooms, locker room, kitchen/laundry room, restrooms, elevator, with a loading dock in the rear of the facility to serve as a receiving area. A hardened concrete slab was built into this area to provide for the operation of forklifts.

CHI erected the precast concrete walls, double-tees, beams, and columns. This process was completed in less than one month. Precast components included walls, double tees, beams, and columns.

The walls of the building were precast concrete panels. The bottom of these panels consisted of corrugated tubular inserts made to receive rebar dowels that were stubbed up from the foundation. If tubular inserts did not align perfectly with the rebar dowels or became misaligned during the concrete pour, then the concrete foundation would have to be chipped out and re-poured. The task to position hundreds of dowels and keep them from shifting during the foundation concrete pour was a daunting task.

In order to ensure accuracy, dowel layout was checked, double-checked and checked a third time. The dowels were strapped to temporary boards that were braced to the sides of the trenches to keep the dowels rigid. Dowels and the corrugated tube inserts all lined up perfectly and allowed for the erection sequence to be executed with ultimate accuracy—to ensure that layout in the field matched the shop drawings and that every dowel was tied tight at the top and bottom. Then after the footings were poured, dowels were check again to make sure nothing had shifted.

Not a single dowel shifted and the layout was spot on. This allowed the crane operation to run smoothly and CHI was able to set the precast walls, one after another.

With their new Oahu Career and Learning Center, Goodwill can continue to pursue its mission of “helping people reach their full potential through education, skills, training and the power of work.”

Video courtesy of Goodwill Industries of Hawaii