Cemex supplies concrete for tallest building in Mexico

The KOI tower, developed by Internacional de Inversiones (IDEI) and designed by the HOK and V&FO firms, will become the tallest building in the country at a height of 917 ft when its 64 stories for residential and office use are completed. For this project, Cemex will contribute nearly 80 000 m² of special concretes.

The skyscraper is in the process of obtaining a LEED Silver certification due to its sustainable character. It is part of the VAO complex located in the Monterrey metropolitan area of Mexico. With the local mountains as an inspiration, KOI blends aesthetic and functional elements to achieve an attractive harmony of innovation, design, proportion, and sustainability.

Turning a project of this magnitude into a reality required a detailed structural analysis in order to identify the appropriate building materials. Without compromising its avant-garde design and with economic and structural viability as its goal, the answer was overwhelmingly convincing: a unitary structure—comprised of load-bearing walls, slabs, and columns—made of concrete.

The massive 26-hour concrete pouring is the second largest ever done by Cemex in a Mexican urban area. In order to build the foundations of this building, 7070 m² of ready-mix concrete were poured continuously at a rate of 270 m² per hour.

A great logistics effort was undertaken, involving 340 employees, seven ready-mix concrete plants, 98 revolving trucks making 1010 trips, seven boom pumps, and 5000 blocks of ice to control the heat produced by concrete hydration.

In order to build this structure, Cemex, in coordination with the DOCSA construction company, used “placing boom” pumping equipment to uniformly and continuously pour the concrete slabs, columns, and other construction elements of the tower.

With this versatile technology, fed by a pipeline running through the core of KOI, Cemex poured concrete at great heights in a quick, efficient, safe, and flexible way.

Attaining a light, viable, and efficient structure that bears the load of the building and the movement of the wind is the main mission of the team of experts at KOI. To achieve this end, a special type of concrete was used, which provides greater structural durability while creating savings in the construction process.

Cemex designed a custom concrete with a strength of 700 kgf/cm², which was used for the columns at the lower levels of the structure.

For now, the more than 50 stories of progress are proof of the ambitious project that KOI represents.

Edited from source by Joseph Green. Source: Cemex

Read the article online at: https://www.worldcement.com/the-americas/04092015/cemex-supplies-concrete-tallest-building-mexico-501/