Award Description

Project Participants

Owner – Molin Concrete Products, Lino Lakes, MN
Architect/Designer – Professional Design Group, Northfield, MN
Structural Engineer – Professional Design Group, Northfield, MN
General Contractor – Kraus-Anderson Minneapolis, Minneapolis, MN
Concrete Producer – Molin Concrete Products, Lino Lakes, MN
Landscape Architect – Buells Landscape Center, Hastings, MN

This new Engineering and Design Office Building will provide office space for engineers, designers, drafters, and estimators. Fixed-wall offices are provided for seven employees, with office system partitions provided for up to twenty-seven staff members. Additional functions include two conference rooms, an employee break room, and a combination plan room/print room/file room. Employee services include men’s and women’s rest rooms, a mechanical/electrical room, a shower room, and a janitor closet. As part of this project, a precast concrete covered walkway was erected to connect the new Engineering/Design Office to the existing Administration Building.

Molin Concrete was eager to demonstrate how precast concrete building products can result in sustainable buildings with good looks and environmentally sensitive attributes. The components of this 7,442 sq. ft. building demonstrate the use of sustainable products and high performance systems that contribute to improved energy efficiency, resource efficiency and indoor air quality.

Among the initiatives employed in the design of this building are:

Use of tubular skylight systems for interior daylighting. Tubular skylight systems are ideal for this application when used in combination with precast concrete roof plank. The roof openings are small relative to the amount of light entering the space, thereby limiting the effect of the opening on the structural capacity of the precast roof plank.

Large exterior window openings for enhanced daylighting. High ceilings and side precast concrete wall panels, manufactured by the Owner, provide flexibility in sizing of window openings ro provide daylighting & exterior views.

Sunshades at exterior south-facing windows. Precast concrete sunshades, again manufactured by the Owner, help reduce solar heat gain in the offices with south-facing windows.

Precast concrete products contain an average of 36% replacement of Portland cement with fly ash, reducing the CO2 off-gassing during concrete curing process, and use of recycled content.

R-26 precast wall systems for greater thermal efficiency and 40% fly ash Replacement.

Precast concrete components for this building contained 42% post-consumer content and 25% pre-consumer content. The project overall, contained 21.5% combined recycled content for all building materials.

To maximize energy savings and minimize the “heat island effect” of a built structure, a white TPO roofing membrane was installed over 100% of the precast roof planks of both the Engineering Office and the Covered Walkway. The Solar Reflectance Index for the roofing material has a value of 99, well over the accepted value of 78. A white roofing material reflects rather than absorbs the sun’s radiant heat, thus helping to keep interior temperatures cooler.

Molin’s campus is situated within the Rice Creek Watershed District. Included in the scope of this project was restoration and enhancement of an existing wetland area, which has been restored using native vegetation.