Pre-Fab Prison with Oldcastle Precast Modular

by Zach Mortice
Associate Editor

Summary: Off-site, pre-fabricated construction has been making big promises of late, aided not in the least by the MoMA’s Home Delivery: Fabricating the Modern Dwelling exhibit. That exhibition showed visitors unrivaled visions of customization and hyper-efficient fabrication with KieranTimberlake’s Cellophane House, and the extreme mobility and flexibly of Horden Cherry Lee’s Micro Compact House. For a design ideal that makes so many pledges to affordability and efficiency, pre-fab modular building systems are still often premium items. What’s often missing are evolutionary steps in building system technology.

One product manufacturer has developed a pre-fabricated, off-site building module system that demonstrates some of these same progressive design principles, at an economical price, albeit towards a very specific application. Oldcastle Precast Modular manufactures stackable pre-cast concrete prison cells, fabricated off-site and assembled rapidly with simple plug-and-play performance.

The company’s fabrication process casts and forms the custom-designed concrete prison cells, wires them and adds plumbing, paints them, adds furniture and fixtures, and then delivers them to the job site, laying them on a slab and stacking them in the hundreds. Although Oldcastle uses their products for a narrow set of applications, they are a custom manufacturer, and their clients can commission customized cells of different sizes and uses. “We have nothing off the shelf,” says senior project manager Bryan Kester.

Saving time
This construction method also saves time with rapid, simple, and efficient construction, in turn saving client’s money. Barbara Bogo, Oldcastle’s marketing expert, estimates that the use of their pre-cast concrete cells can save projects six months of construction time at least.

“We’re building offsite as the general contractor is clearing the site,” says Kester. “We can be ready to drop modules on the site the second they have the slab ready.”

Federal prison under construction
The company’s latest project is a federal prison complex in Fort Leavenworth, Kans. Oldcastle is fabricating 248, 85-square-foot cells for two buildings. The two-story, $150 million complex will be complete by 2010, though its pre-cast concrete cells will be in place by the end of March. The project’s architect is HSMM of Roanoke, Va.

This modular pre-cast system also shares a few sustainable characteristics with its much loftier cousins. These cells are built with extra-efficient insulation cast into their walls, recycled materials are used to form their wire mesh and rebar, and all their concrete contains recycled slag or fly ash. Oldcastle’s multitude of fabrication facilities across the nation means that in most places, materials can be locally sourced. Several Oldcastle projects have achieved LEED® Silver certification, says Kester.

The Oldcastle pre-cast concrete systems have also been used for school expansions, and Bogo says the manufacturer is looking to expand their services to clients building hotels and dormitories, as well as military facilities like barracks and urban combat training grounds.