Building a Circle

Layout instrument simplifies new Overstock.com interior construction

Project Synopsis

A circle-shaped 260,000-square-foot, three-story building is being constructed for the new Overstock.com headquarters located in Midvale, Utah.

The poured concrete building is a circle shape with an approximate 370-foot diameter and a circumference of 1,200 feet. Located on a 19-acre campus-like tract of land, the new facility will house the online company’s corporate offices, which includes the company’s employee training, data facilities, call center, and meeting rooms.

Architecturally, at ground level, the building will look like a glass-and-concrete version of a Roman coliseum, but from the air, the building shape will look like a peace sign — thus, it is referred to as the "Peace Coliseum."

Building the interior walls and ceilings for a new headquarters facility for Overstock.com was the task for Ceiling Systems Inc.(CSI), Draper, Utah. The company specializes in acoustical ceiling systems, acoustical panels, framing, and drywall for commercial, industrial, and institutional projects.

 Challenge

Each of the three floors of the Overstock.com building had its own unique room and space-configuration layout needs. Making certain that the architectural layout was followed exactly became CSI’s main challenge.

The wall and ceiling contractor needed to install approximately 300,000 square feet of standard 5/8-inch (16 mm) thick gypsum drywall. The panel-type product consists of a noncombustible gypsum core with paper surfacing on the face, back, and long edges. It is designed to provide a monolithic surface when joints are taped and fastener heads are covered with a compound.

“This is a complicated challenge requiring our dedicated full attention to detail,” said Jeff Zupan, project manager with CSI. “There was no room for error in this build out project.”

At full staff, CSI had a 32-worker crew dedicated to the project.

Solution

With the circle design of the building, the complexity of the building’s interior lay out, and the completion timeline that was interwoven with other contractors, CSI needed help.

“We were literally looking at weeks of work to create a survey grid we could work off of,” Zupan said. “Rocky Mountain Transit Instruments in Salt Lake City offered a technology option we adopted.”

The Topcon LN-100 Layout Navigator is a 3D layout tool designed specifically for construction layout. The device essentially blends self-leveling laser and robotic total station technologies. The LN-100 is essentially the brain of the system and is paired up with the Topcon FC-500 field controller, a hand-held processing device. The FC-500 features touch-screen operation similar to a smart phone.

“We went with the LN-100 because it matched exactly what we needed for the Overstock.com project,” said Zuban. “It was easy to operate—we probably had no more than a week’s learning curve on the LN-100.”

The general contractor, Okland Construction Company, based in Salt Lake City, provided CSI with the 3D site model, that provided the walls and ceilings placement data on the LN-100. Also provided was the surveyed center point of the Overstock.com circle building, which became the governing reference point for all of the building’s construction contractors.

 Results

“Quite simply, the project is being completed faster, cheaper, and better because we’re using the LN-100,” Zupan said. “It would have taken us months of surveying, but with the technology it took us just a few days to capture all the data. Our work is much more accurate —+/- 1/8th of an inch. And the cost savings, with respect to time and manpower, are clearly significant.”