Each glass panel, fabricated overseas, was meticulously tested and maneuvered through narrow openings using specialized equipment and coordinated crews. The completed system offers controlled visual access to the Undercroft, safeguards the space from environmental impacts and sets the stage for the National Park Service’s dynamic museum exhibits, while preserving the monument’s iconic character.

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Consigli’s Circular Construction Model

Consigli’s circular construction strategies are built on three key pillars:

1. Internal infrastructure;
2. Strategic investment in circular materials and equipment; and
3. The right partners.

Internal Infrastructure

Our fully integrated Supply and Equipment division is backed by Consigli-owned warehouses, trucks, labor and systems that streamline logistics and accelerate procurement. This unique infrastructure enables our team to recover excess materials from jobsites and return them to our warehouses where they’re cataloged, preserved and prioritized for reuse. When another Consigli site requests materials or equipment, our centralized purchasing team’s first step is to evaluate what’s available internally, minimizing new purchases and keeping valuable resources in circulation. By tapping into our existing inventory, we reduce waste, cut costs and improve speed to site—all while advancing our circular construction operations.

Strategic Investment in Circular Materials and Equipment

Selecting products with long lifespans reduces reliance on single-use resources while lowering procurement costs and waste removal fees. Take STARC panels—modular wall systems designed for repeated use—for instance. During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Consigli deployed more than 1.5 miles of these walls on emergency healthcare projects, including triage units at local hospitals. With dedicated warehousing and logistics in place to collect, store and redistribute recycled construction materials, those same STARC panels remain in active use across Consigli projects today. This kind of strategic investment in durable, reusable materials and equipment reduces environmental impact and delivers measurable cost savings across projects.

The Right Partners

Engaging the right partners is essential to closing resource loops across the value chain and extending circular strategies beyond a single organization. By working with like-minded organizations, we amplify impact. Through our partnership with Evolve Resource Management (EvolveRM), we transformed our dated hardhats into plastic pellets, which were then used to manufacture pallets. These pallets are now actively used by our Supply and Equipment division. In the Boston market, Consigli also deploys Wasted* portable restrooms—units that use diversion technology to convert human waste into slow-release fertilizer for gardening. Partnerships like these ensure that waste-to-resource solutions are not just internal goals. They’re shared, long-term commitments.

Scaling Circularity Across the Construction Industry

Consigli’s circularity model challenges the notion that sustainable building is a cost center. By implementing systems that streamline material reuse and reduce construction waste, the model directly addresses rising costs, resource scarcity and the growing demand for sustainable practices. Now, Consigli is committed to building a collaborative circular economy in construction where contractors share recycled construction materials across job sites and organizations, transforming surplus into opportunity. This scalable approach sets a new industry standard, proving that waste reduction, resource sharing and sustainable construction can drive both operational efficiency and long-term environmental impact.

“Consigli’s circularity model has the potential to reshape construction’s environmental footprint—turning waste into opportunity. We’ve seen firsthand how this approach delivers operational efficiency, financial value and measurable sustainability for our clients and our jobsites.”

Jon Burton, Director of Supply and Equipment

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With Arch Energy, Consigli’s energy division, we specialize in helping organizations plan and implement smart, cost-effective and energy-efficient retrofitting strategies that don’t just reduce energy use but improve how buildings function.

The Challenge: Aging Infrastructure & The Impact of Inaction

Facility managers and public leaders face the same problem: managing 30-, 50-, even 100-year-old buildings that were built before energy efficiency was a priority and when fossil fuels were cheap. The consequences are clear:

• Increasing energy costs
• Frequent maintenance calls and repairs
• Uncomfortable or unhealthy indoor environments
• Strained capital budgets

The Shift: From Short-Term Fixes to Long-Term Value

Upgrading a building’s energy systems isn’t a cost—it’s an investment. Like managing our health, we don’t wait to act on signs of a cognitive issue or ignore high blood pressure until there’s an emergency. Investing in prevention is always effective.

Energy efficiency is the preventive care of building health. It reduces risk, improves comfort and avoids expensive surprises down the line. The key is in shifting away from quick fixes and toward long-term performance.

Our Solution: Practical, Performance-Driven Action

Our approach is grounded in data, tailored to unique constraints and guided by long-term thinking:

• Grounded in data: We provide targeted energy and heat loss audits and benchmarking services to understand what’s working and what isn’t, and inform next steps.
• Tailored to unique constraints: Every building has distinctive operating schedules, occupant needs and budget limitations. We develop energy efficiency measures—from design to installation—that satisfy unique constraints.
• Guided by long-term thinking: We help clients plan and prioritize improvements that yield lasting value.

How we do it: Reduce. Reuse. Electrify.

Reduce: Reduce energy through smarter systems. Lighting controls, tighter building envelopes, digital controls and optimized HVAC scheduling are low-hanging fruit that deliver immediate savings.

Reuse: Capitalize on what’s already available. Many aging buildings have functioning infrastructure that can be upgraded and integrated into high-efficiency operations. We focus on reusing—or recovering—wasted energy from that infrastructure to cut energy use without major overhauls:

• Heat recovery from ventilation systems can pre-warm or pre-cool incoming air.
• Water-side heat recovery can capture thermal energy from drains, condensers and other equipment to reuse for space heating or domestic hot water.

Electrify: Where it makes sense, replace fossil-fuel-based systems with high-efficiency heat pumps. Electrification increases building resilience, simplifies maintenance and supports compliance with changing energy codes and carbon regulations.

The Benefits: Energy Efficiency as a Strategic Asset

1. Lower Operating Costs: Targeted retrofits reduce annual energy costs by 20–40% or more. That money can be reinvested into services, staffing or capital reserves.
2. Reduced Maintenance: Fewer breakdowns means fewer emergency repairs. Arch Energy ensures the designs we implement minimize complexity and are easy to operate and maintain.
3. Improved Comfort and Health: Thermal comfort, air quality and lighting quality directly impact occupant performance, productivity and satisfaction.
4. Resilience and Adaptability: Efficient systems make your building more flexible and able to adapt to future technologies, climate events and tenant needs. This means that your heating and cooling equipment is available during extreme events.
5. Environmental Impact: Every upgrade shrinks a carbon footprint, which means cleaner air, regulatory compliance and a facility that contributes to sustainability targets.

Why Now? Energy Efficiency as the Foundation of Compliance

Across the U.S., local laws and building performance standards are raising the bar on energy use, emissions and operational transparency. Like New York City’s Local Law 97 and Boston’s BERDO, jurisdictions are mandating change, and aging buildings are at the center of it.

Energy efficiency is the first, most cost-effective step toward compliance. Benchmarking helps understand a building’s carbon footprint, and efficiency upgrades reduce penalties and extend compliance timelines. Waiting increases the risk of fines, unplanned capital expenses and tenant dissatisfaction. Early action, guided by a clear roadmap, puts you in control of your building’s future.

The Power of Partnership: Why Collaboration Matters

Energy efficiency isn’t a one-time checklist. It requires collaboration, practical know-how and follow-through. That’s where Arch Energy comes in—not just as a contractor, but as a partner to:

• Help reduce costs by identifying the right mix of strategies, incentives and phasing.
• Take ownership of outcomes, guiding the design, construction and commissioning processes.
• Supplement your internal resources, bringing the focus, time and energy that overburdened teams often don’t have.

For our team, energy efficiency is not an afterthought—it’s a priority. Building managers are weighed down by years of deferred decisions, and Arch Energy can help. With countless technologies and pathways, a partner who knows how to turn a vision into action is key.

Where We’re Doing It

Massachusetts State Transportation Building Energy Project

While the 1,000,000 sq. ft. building remained occupied, Consigli and its Arch Energy division replaced legacy lighting with LEDs, added wireless occupancy and daylight controls, upgraded 1,300 Variable Air Volume (VAV) boxes and converted the entire building from pneumatic air to Digital (DDC) controls and cooling and heating plant optimization. $1.89 million in utility funding was secured to support the project.

The Impact:

• 5 million kWh saved annually (equivalent to powering 450 homes)
• 10,000 MMBtu in thermal energy saved
• 2,300 MTCO₂e avoided (like taking 500 cars off the road or planting 38,000 trees)

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With Consigli’s prefabrication and self-perform experts, the project team identified a viable, cost-neutral solution for the building’s exterior wall panels to save on schedule. Upon presentation to and approval from the University, Consigli planned and executed the pre-fabricated exterior wall panels to condense a traditionally six-week building enclosure timeframe into just two weeks with its own self-perform craftspeople.

Design

Engaging the right design partners confirms accurate design details of pre-fabricated building elements and mitigates the risk of rework once materials leave the warehouse.

Consigli engaged a third-party delegated design team to review and confirm details for connections on the exterior wall panels. Excel Engineering, a specialty engineering firm with expertise in cold form steel, was hired to detail the panels and confirm all structural details. Excel converted the façade into panels that could be transported from Consigli’s prefabrication facility to the jobsite as they were ready to be installed.

Prefabrication

In addition to improved quality control and productivity, implementing prefabrication strategies on higher education projects takes work off campus and minimizes on-site construction activity.

Self-perform at Prefabrication Warehouse

At Consigli’s regionally based prefabrication shop, self-perform crews assembled 130 panels totaling 15,000 sq. ft. to enclose the residence hall addition. For eight weeks, five self-perform craftspeople precisely fabricated all exterior wall panels in sequence of how they would be placed on the building. This process brought approximately 1,800 hours of labor hours off of the University’s campus and into the warehouse, reducing on-site construction traffic and supporting a quieter job site in the process.

The well-lit, heated, ground-level space at the warehouse provided an ergonomic working environment—one that a construction site cannot always guarantee among the noises of intrusive trades on site, especially amid February weather in New England. When preparing the panels for load and delivery to site, the project team employed a project-specific quality assurance checklist developed and implemented by Consigli’s Quality department to safeguard the quality of every panel. All dimensions and details were reviewed on multiple occasions, and once each panel passed inspection, the panel was loaded on the flatbed to leave for the site. Panels were loaded onto four flatbed trucks for just-in-time deliveries so the panels could be picked and flown directly onto the building upon arrival to the job site.

Delivery & Installation

Parallel processing of material fabrication and installation supports faster, higher-quality construction by simultaneously managing multiple trades.

Pre-fabricated Exterior Wall Panel Install

While the crew in the prefabrication shop fabricated panels and loaded the trucks, six Consigli craftspeople at the jobsite received and unloaded the panels to be flown and placed on the building. Consigli’s simultaneous workflow—also known as parallel processing—maximized time both on site and in the warehouse. The Consigli field team had pre-checked the concrete foundation wall perimeter at the jobsite to ensure it was flat and level to quickly and accurately receive the first-floor panels set to rest on top of it.

The fast-tracked, two-week installation in February allowed the project team to enclose the exterior and start heating for interior tradework throughout the winter. And, because the building was enclosed and work was moved indoors, the construction site quickly quieted for the campus community, especially for the students in the adjacent dormitory.

The benefits of Consigli’s hands-on ownership of the pre-fabricated exterior wall panels went beyond the accelerated project schedule. Exterior wall system prefabrication ensured a quality product was fabricated and installed efficiently and with the campus’s best interest in mind—from decreased on-campus activity to the maintenance of a clean, safer and substantially quieter construction site.

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In 2018, the DHMC board approved the construction of a new, six-story 240,000 square foot Inpatient Tower, expanding services and capacity by adding 64 state-of-the-art inpatient beds and shell space for future flexible expansion.

The facility was designed with an interdisciplinary and “future-proof” approach. Patient rooms provide flexibility to serve as med/surg, step-down, or even critical care options, depending on need. Each room is private and offers space for visitors to be with their loved ones during their stay. And, technology is at the forefront, with integrated patient dashboards, MyChart Bedside, and telemetry units, allowing patients to interact with their provider teams at their fingertips.

The Challenge: Location-based Labor Shortages

The Upper Valley is a collection of small, quintessential New England towns along the Vermont/New Hampshire border. The area is large, but the population is low, and DHMC is the only hospital within many miles for these residents.

DHMC’s priorities and obligation to Upper Valley residents extended beyond the care they were providing. It was important to the hospital to put the Upper Valley to work through this significant construction project, and to the extent it was possible, keep the labor and vendor base local.

Consigli’s knowledge of the New Hampshire subcontractor market and capabilities informed a thoughtful strategy to do just that, ultimately keeping over 50% of the project spend with local firms.

The Solution: Thoughtful Procurement & Intentional
Prefabrication

Keeping the Work Local: The Consigli team took a holistic view of the planning and buyout for this project: identify which scope areas could be supported by local subcontractors and vendors, and then determine where there were opportunities to introduce creative solutions—like prefabrication and material pre-purchasing—that would infuse greater efficiencies into the project.

To start, the team mapped out all local subcontractors with the size, capacity, and experience to take on a project of this scale and complexity. The subcontractors were invited to an open house event where they could learn more about the project, meet the Consigli team, and get a sense of the expectations and timing for bidding.

“Our plan was to use local labor whenever we could, and when we maxed out that avenue, we explored creative solutions that could enhance the overall delivery of the project,” said Ricky Gala, Senior Project Manager.

Pre-purchasing Equipment for Schedule Certainty: During Design Development in February 2020, Consigli and designer HDR proactively mapped out decision deadlines for material purchasing, advising on workarounds wherever possible. This is a risk management strategy that Consigli employs on all projects, but it proved critically important and timely at DHMC as COVID hit.

As the world was facing unprecedented uncertainty in early 2020, Consigli’s DHMC team was preparing to break ground on the long-awaited (and much needed) Inpatient Tower. Instead, their focus shifted toward forecasting looming material shortages, supply chain issues, border shutdowns, and astronomical price increases.

“From the beginning of the project, well before COVID was ever heard of, we planned this project to be as schedule and labor-resilient as possible…and then the pandemic really stress-tested that approach,” said Consigli Director of Prefabrication Bill Seery.

Consigli secured steel prices before costs skyrocketed and bought from a New Hampshire-based steel mill to avoid potential U.S./Canada border issues. All M/E/P equipment was pre-purchased, locking in early pricing to avoid escalation and circumnavigating long equipment lead times, getting materials to New Hampshire well before they were needed.

It also provided other benefits, like allowing the M/E/P equipment to be designed into the building, and all structural slab requirements and electrical could be fully coordinated in advance, eliminating clashes and field re-work.

This proactive approach extended to commodity items, too. Piping, insulation, roofing, and drywall were prioritized; subcontractor onboarding was expedited, submittals and reviews were fast-tracked, and materials were ordered. Warehouse spaces in Nashua, Enfield, and Seabrook, NH as well as Windsor, VT were used to store the materials until they were needed much later in the project. This fast-tracked procurement approach proved critical as lead times increased nearly 500% on many commodity items during the pandemic.

By April 2020, the Consigli team had locked in its subcontractor and vendor base, pre-purchased materials, and had a solid plan going into the Inpatient Tower groundbreaking, set for July 2020.

“If we weren’t proactive about the way we approached procurement and prefabrication on this project, we would’ve been caught on our heels when COVID hit,” said Gala. “We weren’t reacting to a problem and trying to change course. We planned the project in the most efficient way possible, and when the pandemic hit, we were in the best possible situation to take it head-on.”

See how Consigli’s equipment and commodity pre-purchase strategy safeguarded the project when COVID hit, and lead times skyrocketed.

Prefabrication for Enhanced Delivery: “The way we go about pre-fab…it’s very systematic. We think from the site all the way through the M/E/Ps and finishes,” explains Brian Hamilton, Consigli’s Vice President of Healthcare & Life Sciences. “When you approach pre-fab as removing labor from a jobsite, it opens up people’s minds; they aren’t just thinking about the standard prefabrication elements.”

Every aspect of the DHMC prefabrication approach was deliberate. The selected scopes needed to add value to the finished project or the way it was delivered. From the smallest solutions like pre-installing hardware on doors, to large-scale improvements like a structural shift to bolted connections, or driving the exterior design for prefabrication, the decisions had to improve quality, increase speed of delivery, save money, or remove on-site labor to mitigate campus disturbances and make the jobsite safer.

“Consigli went into this project knowing the value and advantages that prefabrication would bring. When HDR had roughed out a conceptual massing diagram, the entire DHMC project team started collectively digging into the elements of the job that we wanted to pre-fab,” continues Hamilton. “It was really important that we started this out of the gate, because in some cases, it changed the way we approached the building.”

By pre-fabricating systems that directly impacted care delivery and the patient experience, items like headwalls, med gas racks, and wet walls, Consigli and the client team were able to inspect early and often, ensuring the assemblies met DHMC’s exact specifications and standards of care. It also helped keep the schedule in-line by reducing the risk of defects and non-compliance that would need to be repaired or replaced during punchlist.

“By going into the Inpatient Tower project aware of these potential delay ‘traps,’ pre-planning, pre-procuring, and pre-fabricating were all applied to mitigate and diminish these risks,” said Seery. “Our goal on every project is to eliminate risk through intensive pre-planning, and the results at DHMC showcase the fruits of that effort.”

Check out the video below to see what was pre-fabricated and the value it added to the DHMC Patient Tower project.

Turning Over the Tower

Three years after COVID called into question the feasibility of DHMC’s long-awaited project, the Inpatient Tower is opening its doors to the Upper Valley community, providing close-to-home care and a patient experience that rivals its neighbors in Boston and Portland.

Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center’s state-of-the-art tower has increased the hospital’s ICU capacity by 228%, with an additional two floors of shell space for a flexible expansion and space for 64 beds which could increase capacity by 356% when fit-out. The main entrance to the hospital is welcoming, with a comfortable lobby, beautiful chapel, easy-to-access amenities and services like food and beverage stations, a lactation room, and an expanded discharge lounge for DHMC patients.

The once too-small hospital is now a landmark for primary and specialty care in the Upper Valley.

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How does Consigli—which has planned and built more than 25 projects incorporating timber solutions—coordinate and collaborate with our project partners to plan and deliver high-quality timber structures? With extensive experience analyzing, procuring and installing mass timber, Consigli’s interdisciplinary approach supports our clients—like Bowdoin—in making cost-effective, schedule-driven decisions when planning a mass timber project.

Initial Design

Rigorous preconstruction planning is a must when it comes to mitigating potential cost, schedule and quality impacts associated with a mass timber structure.

• Early Detections of Issues: The smallest details matter when it comes to achieving the desired look and function for such a specialized finish product. Incorporating design intent into early models helps guide crucial design considerations to be incorporated into fabrication documents and allow for timely timber release.
• Structural Reviews: Structural drawing reviews help analyze column spacing, spans of timber elements, choices of direction of primary girders and varying strategies for mechanical ductwork and plumbing routing. The review process can potentially result in cost saving through elements including reducing beam sizes and floor plate thickness.
• Cost Competitiveness: In today’s ever changing and challenging materials market, mass timber has remained relatively steady in pricing. This certainty allows mass timber to be priced early with greater assurance of costs as the project progress. Depending on the application, mass timber pricing can be very cost competitive when compared to steel and concrete and has additional cost benefits in terms of fit-out costs. Mass timber can also remain exposed, reducing the costs of expensive interior finishes on a project.

Selection & Sourcing

Timber species selection can affect the mass timber manufacturer. The right decision-making can support early internal estimates and analyze specific species for the best fit.

• Wood Species & Material Finish: Material selection has a significant impact on the choice of timber manufacturers. From aesthetic to strength of structural design to lengths of members, Consigli can help evaluate timber species and offer options that satisfy aesthetic and structural need.
• Deep Knowledge of Supplier/Manufacturer Market: A strong list of suppliers, both domestic and foreign, ensures competitive pricing for initial bidding during earlier phases of design. As the mass timber is fully designed and released for fabrication, a well-established market knowledge is crucial in bidding installation.

Coordination & Release

Coordination model completion ahead of Construction Documents is critical to final fabrication shop drawings for mass timber. With timber lead times ranging from 16 to 24 weeks from final drawing approvals, time is of the essence.

M/E/P coordination for a mass timber structure.

• M/E/P/FP Coordination: Mass timber penetrations for M/E/P/FP systems must be carefully planned and integrated into fabrication documents. Coordination models for these penetrations allow all pathways to be designed and manufactured in shop in lieu of in field; this is crucial as field cutting is prohibited for this level of finished product.
• Design-Assist Engagement: Engaging design-assist partners for M/E/P/FP systems and mass timber allows the project team to coordinate within the working design model. Creation of CD-level documents through design-assist, even as the rest of the design is in early stages, supports completion of building systems and architectural features for a release of timber well ahead of CDs, mitigating the challenge of timber long lead times.

Delivery & Installation

Careful attention must be paid to the handling, installation and protection of mass timber to maintain the material’s integrity. Hands-on installer experience is imperative when planning a successful mass timber project.

Mass timber logistics & installation considerations.

• Logistical Planning Handling & Installation: Development of the right logistics plans for efficient installation—accounting for any potential double handling and required special care—is paramount to creating schedule certainty through installation. The right project partners develop proper delivery, loading and sequencing unique to each site.
• Protecting your Investment through Insurance & Temporary Protections: Consigli’s in-house Job Site Insights platform allows our clients to protect their investment through floor-by-floor detection of potentially damaging elements to the timber structure, including water, fire or any other elements that may stain or mar the finished product. Additionally, temporary protection is often required and includes the use of hard walls held off the timber columns for UV and moisture protection, floor plate protection from UV, moisture and foot traffic, maintenance of humidity and temperature post close-in. The most effective timber structure protection is speedy building enclosure to reduce environmental impact on the timber itself. Once enclosed and final systems are brought online, maintaining proper humidity levels is critical to keeping the timber looking and functioning at its best.
• Self-perform Capabilities: Consigli self-performs mass timber installation and protection, giving us added control over schedule, quality and continuity of installation because we are that much closer to the product. Our 700 in-house craftspeople share our standards for quality and are a strong additional resource to call upon to get work done on time.

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Design

When planning an aggressive project schedule, utilize repetitive design details to ensure quality and efficiency as multiple elements are built simultaneously off-site.

Pre-cast Concrete Foundations

The concrete foundations at Johnson Pond Houses were designed to eliminate on-site formwork and ease transportation to site. Consigli’s Virtual Design and Construction (VDC) team developed 35 concrete panel shop drawings to be repeated for each building. Each panel included every penetration, lifting device, reinforcing detail and finishing requirement, with concealing joints between panels. Foundations Engineer of Record Trillium Engineering reinforced details and accelerated drawing approvals.

To confirm there were no conflicts between the concrete, volumetric modular structural unit models, embeds and site work, each panel type was digitally modeled and clash-detected with the structural unit models. Drain lines, HVAC system louver openings, boiler vents, sprinkler drains and electrical conduits were modeled and sleeved in the panels based on the 3D model of Mechanical, Electrical, Plumbing and Fire Protection (M/E/P/FP) systems.

Volumetric Modular Structural Units

KBS Builders Inc. (KBS) pre-fabricated structural units that allowed in-factory framing, electrical, plumbing and fire protection installation. Consigli and the Kaplan Thompson Architects design team engaged M/E/P/FP design-build subcontractors for weekly coordination meetings to advance the design with KBS. With 18 structural units per building repeated across four houses, coordination and review of KBS shop drawings were required twelve weeks prior to on-site delivery.

The design-build delivery of the four repetitive buildings allowed the team to rapidly adjust design details and apply adjusted concepts from the first building to the last in real time for schedule and quality improvements. The structural units were designed to deliver nearly complete interiors for all spaces except the corridors and pre-cast basements.

Prefabrication

Traditional on-site construction limits simultaneous trades on site, due to its inherent sequential nature (first comes site work, then foundation, framing and so on). Prefabrication supports faster, higher-quality construction by simultaneously managing multiple trades and delivering materials to site only when installation-ready.

Pre-cast Concrete Foundations

Consigli Self-perform in Pre-casting Yard

With zero flexibility on structural unit delivery, the team had only four working days to set the foundation walls for each building. Consigli turned the parking lot adjacent to the project into a near-site pre-casting yard to construct foundations during sitework, allowing the team to pre-cast and pre-kit the panels on truck beds for just-in-time (JIT) delivery once the site was ready.

From the VDC group’s detailed drawings, Consigli’s self-perform team formed and pre-casted each of the 140 panels. A heated form structure supported rapid pre-cast at ground level, reducing jobsite hazards such as weather-caused slips and potential soil/excavation collapse in the foundation holes. The Consigli carpenters’ pre-casting system formed, reinforced, casted, cured and stripped panels on a five-day cycle.

Volumetric Modular Structural Units

Structural unit prefabrication occurred simultaneously with site preparation, foundation and steel fabrication, all of which converged on the date units were delivered to site. Each 18-unit building took 20 working days to pre-fabricate, including the installation of M/E/P systems, insulation, operable windows, an exterior air vapor barrier and a highly insulated exterior wall system to provide a Net Zero Ready structure. The interiors of the bedroom units, bathrooms and common area rooms included the installation of drywall, light fixtures, electrical outlets, flooring and finish paint.

Delivery & Installation

Prefabrication reduces on-site labor density, ensures manpower consistency and decreases safety incidents. To reap the benefits of off-site prefabrication against an aggressive project schedule, extensive coordination of trades is essential. 

Pre-cast Concrete Foundations

Concrete panels were delivered just-in-time and placed with a crane with structural steel support beams. Consigli’s self-perform installers set the entire foundation wall system in less than three days—from the first panel being set to the start of wood sill plate installation.

Threaded inserts allowed clean picks off the panels’ sides. Embedded cam rotational picks rotated the panels from their flat to vertical positions for installation. Temporary bracing held the panels in place while awaiting structural unit installation, and top embeds were set to lock in the units come time for installation.

Volumetric Modular Structural Units

Structural Unit Installation

Structural units were delivered in two stages per building (left and right side, two-floors high). In typical pre-fabricated structural unit assembly, units fit with no openings to the exterior. Unique to the Johnson Pound Houses, the structural units had openings for corridor connections when set in place. Keeping each building weathertight between setting units and getting the roof tilted required careful, multi-trade coordination.

Consigli reviewed punch list items throughout construction, catching deficiencies when work was first put in place. Every item delivered was immediately quality reviewed, further accelerating the completion of each building by taking early corrective action.

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In this video series, Consigli looks at components of net zero carbon construction and implementation with our partners. Our first feature is Hotel Marcel, a certified historic renovation that repositioned a former office building into a hotel, targeting Net Zero Energy, Passive House and LEED Platinum certifications.

Sustainable Energy Production

Looking at operating costs over a five-year period, the investment in net zero operations ultimately pays for itself.

As a net zero energy building, the hotel generates 100% of its own electricity, heat and hot water with a rooftop solar array and solar parking canopies—totaling over 1,000 solar panels—with no fossil fuels used for the building’s power or heat. Hotel Marcel is its own energy island, supported by a battery-equipped solar microgrid to power the hotel, feed power to the grid during peak times and maintain power to the building during grid outages. The building’s Energy Use Intensity (EUI) rating is projected to be 34 kBtu per square foot, which is 80% less energy than median EUI for hotels in the United States.

Building Electrification

Technology, like lighting through an ethernet system, allows what was historically one of the least energy-efficient building operations to greatly reduce energy use and operational costs.

Hotel Marcel houses all-electric kitchen and laundry facilities—some of the largest energy-use areas in hotel operations—and utilizes low-voltage Power over Ethernet (PoE) technology to significantly reduce energy use across the entire building. Building-wide PoE powers and controls all lighting and window shades, enhancing operational control and reducing lighting energy use by over 30% compared to conventional lighting systems.

High-efficiency Mechanical Systems

The right mechanical systems can reduce monthly heating and cooling expenses while fostering improved indoor environments through ventilation and exhaust air heat transfer without direct air mixing.

Carefully selected mechanical systems at Hotel Marcel, specifically Variable Refrigerant Flow (VRF) air-source heat pumps and Energy Recovery Ventilation (ERV), support energy-efficient heat recovery and improved indoor air quality in the hotel. The VRF systems at Hotel Marcel can recover heat from cooled spaces for use in heated spaces and vice versa, enabling multiple indoor zones to operate on the same system from the same main compressor unit. The ERV recycles heat energy from the building’s exhaust air to pretreat outside air, reducing load on the HVAC unit and the required capacity of the mechanical equipment. ERV operations are essential for achieving great indoor air quality in high-performance, airtight buildings like Hotel Marcel.

Airtight Envelope Design & Moisture Control

Historic restorations requirements and regulations are not an end-stop for sustainable construction. Innovative building strategies can maintain a building’s historic integrity and deliver solutions for a more sustainable future.

Key to an energy efficient building is a well-insulated envelope with interior and exterior insulation, especially when targeting Passive House. However, at Hotel Marcel, the historic concrete façade could not be modified. Through interior spray foam insulation, the project team created an airtight, high-performance envelope while leaving the exterior untouched, aside from minor caulking improvements. Great care was taken in selecting an environmentally preferable spray foam with low embodied carbon and minimal off-gassing. Coupled with the installation of high-performance window, multiple layers of spray foam insulation ensure an airtight envelope protected from the impacts of outdoor moisture.

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Founded by a registered P.E. and a NASA engineer, Rugged Robotics’ inaugural product tackles the challenge of field layout. Traditionally, field layout is performed using tape measures, chalk-lines, and surveying equipment to manually mark the location of walls and mechanical systems. Rugged Robotics automates this process, marking fully coordinated designs directly on to concrete floors using small robotic vehicles. Using the rover, construction workers can print much more information than typically seen on a manual layout, reduce the time spent reviewing plans, and as a result, conduct faster, more accurate installations. It also helps eliminate potential oversights and errors in the manual layout, which can impact multiple trades, and result in incorrect installation, delays, and rework.

Recently, the Rugged Robotics rover was put to the test at Cambridge Crossing – Parcel H, where Consigli is building the new headquarters for Sanofi, one of MA’s largest life science employers. At Parcel H, Rugged delivered a multi-trade layout on six floors covering more than 240,000 square ft.  Their automated layout resulted in improved coordination, reduced errors, and significant time savings on the front end.

“Consigli truly believes in our solution and together, we are working to improve the construction industry,” said Derrick Morse, co-founder and CEO of Rugged Robotics. “As someone who is passionate about the construction industry, it has been thrilling to be in the field and working alongside the Consigli team.”

“At Consigli, our leadership and technology teams are always looking for ways to make construction projects more accurate and efficient, and maximize the allocation of resources on each site,” said Jack Moran, Assoc. AIA, LEED AP and Consigli’s director of VDC and Integrated Services. “We see technology as a way to support our workforce and to meet the construction demands of the future. Rugged Robotics proved its value with an automated tool that exceeded our expectations and worked in synergy with our team.”

Following the pilot, Rugged and Consigli continue to collaborate as Rugged refines, deploys and scales its solution. Future Consigli projects utilizing the robots are already in the works!

The post Construction Technology Newcomer Rugged Robotics Completes First Full-Scale Pilot on Consigli Site first appeared on Consigli Construction.

The post Construction Technology Newcomer Rugged Robotics Completes First Full-Scale Pilot on Consigli Site appeared first on Consigli Construction.

Becker + Becker Associates, Inc.’s historic rehabilitation of the Marcel Breuer designed Pirelli Building transformed a long-vacant icon into the net zero Hotel Marcel—the country’s first Passive House designed hotel.

All electric, the hotel is powered by renewable on-site energy. Among other sustainable measures, variable refrigerant flow air-source heat pumps and energy recovery ventilation mechanical systems create a uniquely energy-efficient building.

Operated by Chesapeake Hospitality, the hotel hosts 165 guest rooms and suites, restaurant and bar, lounge and meeting spaces and penthouse-level courtyard and galleries.

The post Hotel Marcel: Hospitality’s Model for Sustainability first appeared on Consigli Construction.

The post Hotel Marcel: Hospitality’s Model for Sustainability appeared first on Consigli Construction.