Cambridge, MA

238 Main Street

Scope/Solutions
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Project Summary

Scope/Solutions

With its Kendall Square development, MIT creates a community shared by institute resources and private companies. The Site 3 project incorporates an existing Kendall Building at 238 Main Street with a new twelve-story addition, offering modern office and laboratory space and ground-level retail. A five-story atrium connects the new and existing structures. SGH provided building enclosure commissioning services for the building featuring high-performance unitized curtain wall systems and existing mass masonry walls.

As the building enclosure commissioning provider, SGH worked with the project team from the design documents phase through mockups, performance testing, and construction. Highlights of our work include the following:

Helping establish performance expectations by developing the building enclosure commissioning (BECx) plan and specification and outlining testing requirements, roles and responsibilities for the project team, and procedures for documenting and resolving construction-related issues
Reviewing the enclosure design, including the owner’s project requirements and the basis of design at critical phases, and providing recommendations to improve performance, energy efficiency, and constructability
Reviewing enclosure-related submittals, including those outlining plans for the curtain wall performance mockup construction and testing, and operation and maintenance manuals
Visiting the unitized curtain wall fabricator’s facility to observe the construction processes and review their QA/QC plan
Providing construction phase services, including coordinating commissioning activities, observing ongoing construction and in situ performance testing to compare with the design intent, and helping resolve field conditions
Preparing a final BECx report summarizing completed work, construction deviations, and site observations
Performing a follow-up review of the enclosure ten months after occupancy