Costello Construction is nearing completion of the National Museum of Health and Medicine, one of the first blast resistant tilt-up buildings in the United States.
Costello Construction was awarded the design build contract by the US Army Corps of Engineers to design and construct the Museum just over 15 months ago. The sculptural 20,000 square-foot structure, designed by KlingStubbins, is innovatively framed using a combination of cast-in-place and tilt-up concrete walls and structural steel.
The Museum is clad with a combination of limestone veneer, metal wall panels and blast resistant curtain wall. The blast design and construction was particularly complicated due to the Museum’s location, which straddles the protected area of the Forest Glen Annex.
The building is designed in accordance with the Unified Facilities Criteria (UFC), DOD Minimum Antiterrorism Standards for Buildings, including UFC 4-010-01 which is the primary guideline for blast resistant design and construction. In order to ensure quality control and the on-time, under budget completion, Costello Construction self performed the excavation, site/building concrete, setting of tilt-up and hung concrete panels, site utilities, building layout/survey and some carpentry. Upon completion, construction cost for this project will mount in excess of $500 per square foot.
Under BRAC, the Museum, which houses over 25 million artifacts, is being relocated from its current location at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center to the new facility at the Forest Glenn Annex in Silver Spring, Maryland. With an arduous move impending for Museum affiliates and a quickly approaching construction completion date, anticipations of an amazing, LEED Silver rated building and functioning, thriving Museum are very high.
TCA was founded in 1986 to improve the quality and acceptance of site cast Tilt-Up construction, a construction method in which concrete wall panels are cast on-site and tilted into place. Tilt-Up construction is one of the fastest growing industries in the United States, combining the advantages of reasonable cost with low maintenance, durability, speed of construction and minimal capital investment. For more information about the TCA, visit www.tilt-up.org.
