Concrete Tilt Construction

Develop Architects was recently commissioned a concrete tilt up panel building. The project was to house a new headquarters for a local construction company in Ogden, Utah. There is a mix of offices and shop space for equipment storage and maintenance. The client wanted to go with either a steel building or concrete tilt up building. Due to the client being an excavation company, we decided to try our hand at concrete tilt panel construction.

Concrete Tilt Panel buildings feature exterior walls of concrete, tilted into place to form the building's exterior structure and facade. This type of construction is efficient, compact, and quick. The building's concrete floor and footings are constructed in place. After, the concrete walls are poured directly on top of the concrete floor an tilted into place using a large crane. They are placed on the footing and braced while the next concrete panel is tilted. This type of construction is increasingly popular for businesses that need a lot of space for a competitive cost and quick construction timelines. Warehouses, mixed use commercial (flex space), construction, fabrication and manufacturing companies are exploring this building typology more and more.

It's a fun type of construction, it seemingly goes from walls poured on the ground to a "building" overnight. 

We'll go over the other details, including the office space and interior insulation, finishing the concrete panels, and overall design in a later post.

Concrete Panels laid out, formed, and poured on concrete building pad.

Aerial view of concrete tilt panels. Metal embeds for connecting the panels together, and other embeds for lifting the panels with a crane.

Halfway through the tilt process.

Crane lifting concrete panel into place.