April 17, 2008

RICHARD GILBERT

The London Aviation Centre building at Vancouver Airport is being assembled on site after the entire building system was manufactured in Spokane, Washington and then shipped in by truck.

Modular design speeds London Aviation Centre hangar project

RICHARD GILBERT

staff writer

Vancouver

The newest hangar at the Vancouver airport is being built using a unique modular steel system, instead of the traditional steel or tilt-up construction techniques.

Scott DesignBuild Ltd is building the new London Aviation Centre at YVR South Terminal for London Air Services. The 84,000 sq. ft. hangar/office facility will have a 366 ft. clear span required for the movement and storage of LAS’s fleet of Global, Challenger and Lear jets as well as helicopters and Boeing business jets.

Two large sliding hangar doors (44 feet high x 180 feet long) by Creative Doors, allow LAS ease of access to all aircraft. There is an interior fabric door system dividing the hangar in two, which allows LAS to keep one side of the hangar warm while the other side is open to the elements.

The construction of the corporate airline hangar and two-storey office facility will utilize a unique steel building system from the US.

“The complete steel building system is quite large and is coming up from Garco Building Systems in Spokane, Washington,” said Vic Donaldson, Scott Construction. Garco fabricates the building and we get steel plates, welded, packed and shipped on site by trucks. Its like a big Meccano set.”

Garco designs, manufactures and distributes steel building systems for commercial, industrial, community and agricultural applications.

Vince Triance president and owner of Vision Steel Contracting (VSC) said “I call this system Constructs for grown-ups, because it requires the builder get a drawing or plan and bolt all the steel pieces together.”

VSC was hired by Scott to erect the metal building from Garco. All components that are supplied by Garco make it possible for buildings to go up faster than conventional construction with reduced field labour and on-site modifications.

According to Donaldson, one of the unique features of this project is the speed in which the hangar and office building can be erected, enclosed and completed. The steel building system allows Scott to take this project from groundbreaking on Jan. 24 to full completion on Oct.31.

“To prepare for construction, Scott compacted and firmed up the land by putting preload material on the site for one and a half months. Scott put about 2 metres of preload sand and let that sit for a month and a half,” said Donaldson.

The geotechnical engineer, Horizon Engineering, checked the preload sand for settlement with gauges. A surveyor checked how much the land settled. After a few weeks with no movement, the preload was scraped off so the site was nice and flat.

The structural engineer, Bogdonov Pao Associates, designed all the footings and foundations based on findings of geotechnical reports.

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