St. Damien of Molokai Church

Construction of a tilt-up church. Marketing Description: The St. Damien of Molokai church is the first tilt-up building constructed on the remote island of Molokai. It is built in honor of the Belgian priest who cared for patients suffering from Hansen s disease. The church was built at the same location of the former St. Sophia Church, which burned down nearly two years prior. The building has twice as much capacity as St. Sophia, and features new multi-purpose spaces, classrooms, restrooms, and parking.Saint Damien is uniquely constructed of approximately 6,000 square feet of concrete tilt-up panels on an extremely narrow site, consisting of only 3,000 square feet of useable slab surface area within a 5,000-square-foot area. Finishes included metal standing seam and EPDM roofing, hardi-plank siding, EIFS details, an aluminum storefront and window wall entry, luxury vinyl tile, hardwood and ceramic flooring, paint, and an exterior stamped, stained, and antiqued concrete courtyard at the front entry. This is the first free-standing building completed by Nordic PCL s Special Projects Division. The client decided to utilize concrete tilt-up construction to achieve the rounded arches traditionally seen in churches. The narrow jobsite, consisting of only 3,000 sq. ft. of useable slab surface area, required almost 6,000 sq. ft. of tilt-up panels to be cast and stacked on top of one another. Unlike the simple squares comprising "big box" structures, the unusual geometry of the church's panels required extra effort in creating the formwork, including building decking to support larger pieces that were required early in the erection sequence. Nordic PCL partially used engineered form lumber to increase productivity of the tilt-up formwork process.