Designing 14 Story Precast Parking Garage

When I started in Feb 2017, I had some general knowledge from school and a bag full of dreams. Eventually it was worth going through the hard work. Even though because of external reasons I have to leave the company before the project was completed, I probably made great friends there.

I like being challenged and eventually become competitive in whatever I am doing. At my very first industry job, I got involved in a 14 story parking garage project. I was responsible for coordination, partial structural calculations and manufacturing ticket control.

I recently received a message from one of my co-workers about a link that directly takes me to the camera which is monitoring the construction 24/7 and daily photos are added. I am sharing the link here if you’d like to take a look at it.

Here are 5 things I learned from this project;

1. Precast

It was my first project working with precast concrete. I was involved in structural design, structural calculations, drawing coordination and ticket controlling and external communication phases.

2. Tall structure design

Most of the assumptions for low-rise and mid-rise structures cannot be used for a 14 story structure.

3. Internal and external communication

If you ask me what is most important factor for successful project, I would say it is communication. If you do not have solid proof of information you passed forward, you’ll end up being blamed. Timings on projects fail due to miscommunication.

4. Importance of codes

You have to use specific codes for every single line of calculation. My gain from this was learning to use PCI design and connection manual.

5. The confidence

After designing 14 story parking garage, I will never be afraid of any tall structure. Even though I couldn’t find a solid information, number of parking garages such high are very limited.