Best faces forward

The architects, engineers, and prime contractors tend to get all the attention on major projects like the Cancer Center. But, it is the faces you see above that are actually making it happen. It is their sweat and skills that are on the site everyday making the Louisiana Cancer Research Center a reality. Behind them, you can see the fruits of their labor on what, just four months ago, was a flat piece of ground.

It's really two buildings in one

Because the cancer center will be home to very sensitive samples and experiments, the construction team is going to great lengths to make sure outside vibrations will not affect them. Any vibration, even from a car in the garage 7 stories below, could jeopardize research results.

Imagine building a major facility on stilts that sits 5 stories in the air. Now imagine interweaving a parking garage underneath that facility while making sure each structure avoids touching the other. That’s how the Cancer Center is being constructed.

The parking structure is actually being built as its own building within the main structure to cut down on vibrations that the vehicles may cause. The parking structure and the research center are being erected on their own sets of columns. The columns supporting the garage and the primary building columns, while side-by-side, are separated by just two-and-a-half inches.

The two structures, that occupy the same space and appear as one, are actually separated by about the width of three fingers! The product of clever engineering and skillful construction.