Design and choice of materials will ensure the security of inmates and staff at the $105 million United States Penitentiary II in Terre Haute, Ind.

A rectangle makes up the campus of the maximum-security federal prison, said Nathan Moore, project architect with Fort Wayne, Ind.-based Schenkel Shultz Architecture, partner in the Clark /Hagerman/Schenkel Shultz Joint Venture design-build team. An inwardly focused series of more than a dozen buildings offers inmates little opportunity to look out of the site and dream of escape.

Two sets of three V-shaped housing pods face each other across a compound. At one end of the rectangle is a group of buildings used for activities that include maintenance, personal services, food service and health services. At the other end, structures slated for religious education and recreation close off the compound, said Jeff Hagerman, vice president in the Indianapolis office of Fort Wayne, Ind.-based Hagerman Construction Corp., a member of the joint-venture partnership.

A secured corridor of enclosed space surrounds the compound. The corridor's interior wall is the back sides of the housing pods, and the exterior wall is composed of precast concrete wall panels, Hagerman said. Beyond that is "no man's land" and three circuits of taut-wire fencing. Six guard towers with sight lines into the compound are just outside the fencing, and a seventh guard tower is back in the middle of the compound.

Closed-circuit TV cameras monitor the prison's critical areas, and a control room outside the secured perimeter can open and close key access points into structures that include the housing pods, the secured corridor and the main entrance.
"Security and safety for inmates, guards and staff is the entire focus," Moore said.
Indeed, a design change was implemented to add security frames with bars to cells in the special housing unit, where the death penalty is carried out.

Prisoners will be in cells formed of precast concrete, said Joe Smith, vice president with Clark Construction Group Inc., a joint-venture partner. Precast was selected as the primary cell material because of the speed of erection it afforded. Mesh in the precast gives it additional strength.

Cast-in-place concrete is used, too, for the floor slabs and roofs, Smith said. The thickness of these elements - 8 in. for the floor slabs and 7.5 in. for the roofs - will deter escapes. The roof also has a metal deck and exterior membrane.

A Prison Paucity

The project is next to an existing prison, which is where Timothy McVeigh, the infamous Oklahoma City bomber, suffered the death penalty.

The new facility is being built primarily because of a lack of space to lock up the large number of convicts found guilty of offenses against federal laws. Nine additional federal prisons are under construction in other parts of the country, and two others are in design, Smith said.

He added that 960 cells approximately 7 ft. wide by 14 ft. long comprise the prison under way in Terre Haute. The cells are formed as five-sided boxes - four walls and a roof. Two cells, one atop another, make up a unit. A balcony fronts the upper cell.
The cells were manufactured in special forms in West Burlington, Iowa, where Raider Precast is based. They were cured, finished and painted, and furnishings that include bed, sink and mirror, toilet, writing table and locker were installed.

A large number of components contained within the precast - conduit runs, imbeds for bearing members and block-outs for penetrations - required close coordination, Smith said. "We had several meetings prior to casting and made several plant visits," he added.

The shrink-wrapped cell units were shipped to Terre Haute, where they were erected and utilities installed. "The onsite erection is pretty fast," Smith said.

An important project element is the "very large" central utility plant, which supplies the existing prison, the facility under way and a future detention center, Smith said. Having maintenance personnel in one facility, rather than three, was an efficiency the Federal Bureau of Prisons sought for the site.

Some of the mechanical, electrical and plumbing work was intricate. The steam lines and the electrical bank to the existing facility, for example, were laid about 1.5 to 2 miles, and they were encased in concrete near the jail for security.

Four different materials were used to hold up the new prison: masonry bearing walls, structural steel, concrete columns and even precast panels.

"When you have an exterior precast wall, for instance, it doesn't make sense to add columns and pilasters when you can design the wall with a little added steel to carry the end of the [ceiling] joist," Smith said.

More than 2,000 precast wall panels clad structures on the site, said Collin Wagenbach, general manager of Raider Precast.

Smith's colleagues in the project included Terry Grams, senior project manager, and Lewis Roberson, senior superintendent. The 1.2 million-sq.-ft. project is expected to be complete in April.

Speed of Design-Build

The design-build method was used primarily to accelerate the project and realize cost savings. Design started in July 2001, the design-build contract was awarded the following November and the design was complete in July 2002.

As in most design-build projects, coordination ensured that everyone was cognizant of the design status, Moore said. An Internet-based project management system, Constructware, was used to keep key team members up to date on design plans, proposed changes and approved modifications.

The software proved useful because 38 modification proposal requests, or formal changes proposed by the prison bureau, were incorporated in the final design. Other nomenclature was adopted to ensure team members could keep track of what was being communicated and by whom. Responses of the design-build team to MPRs were called construction bulletins, and changes made to the final design were referred to as architect's supplemental instructions.

About three to four months were saved through the use of the design-build method, Moore said. "You don't have a full-blown bidding process," he added. "Right there, on this kind of job, you probably have a two-month bidding window alone."

Site, Weather Issues

The extra time was needed because some unusual issues were encountered on the project.

Loose, sandy soil that would affect the strength of the foundation lay on the site, Smith said. The soil was compacted to fortify it.

A crane was brought in to drop a 10-ton disk on the ground, he said. The crater was filled in, and a smaller disk was dropped until a 3,000- to 5,000 lbs.-per-sq.-ft. strength of the soil was achieved throughout the site.

The compaction allowed the use of spread footings, a shallow foundation type, for the buildings.

The weather was a battle because the recent winter was unusually cold. Heaters allowed the slabs on grade to be poured and the grouting of the precast to be done.
Other kinds of climate also affected the project, such as rain and wind. "We worked through the winter months for the erection if the wind would allow us," Smith said.