TABLE OF CONTENTS - The Professional Green Building Council

Theme B: Creating a livable, healthy and environmentally viable citiesSince the late 1970’s, our designers and builders have experimented with variousmechanized forms of construction to improve built quality, to improve efficiency,and reduce the use of labour-intensive and skill-sensitive wet trades on site.Mechanized construction techniques can make the process simpler, safer, quickerand cleaner. These techniques became mandatory contractual requirements in the1990’s and our teams have worked with our contractors to perfect the use of largepanel formwork systems, pre-cast concrete and other pre-fabrication techniquesfor a wide range of building components (Photo 2). We now have a pilot projectwhere we have increased the extent of pre-casting and prefabrication from ourusual 20% of the concrete work, to approximately 60%, through the use of pre-castconcrete shear walls, stairs and lift cores as well as volumetric units for bathrooms,kitchens and staircase cores. Social, economic and environmental benefits havefollowed, most notably the improvements in site safety, reduction of waste, qualitybenefits and the reduced impact on the environment.Photo 3: Increased Use of Pre-cast and Prefabricated Elements in BuildingConstruction Works4.2.2 Applying Hard Paved Construction for Building and Piling WorksA further enhancement to reduce the impact of our works and improve conditionsat site level has been the requirement for temporary paving in all of our296