To develop unique residential properties reminiscent of turn-of-the-century warehouses from cast-in-place beams and slabs, general contractor C.F. Jordan studied the use of several shoring and forming systems. According to Denis Gee, vice president in charge of the firm's Dallas office, an ordinary 'stick' forming system would not have worked well with the two-story clear heights required in the living areas of the residential units. The standard table system would have worked, he says, but the best solution turned out to be a column-mounted table system.
The column-mounted table system readily handled the alternating floor plates with one-story and two-story ceiling heights. The real advantage of the column-supported tables was that they - in combination with the use of high-early-strength concrete - made possible the elimination of reshoring, resulting in significant time savings. Also, the column-supported tables offered the benefit of keeping the form lines as straight and square as the project required.
Although the same column-supported table system that was used at 2011 Cedar Springs is not reusable 'as is' at the McKinney Avenue Lofts project, Gee reports that it has been modified for reuse on the second project. At 2011 Cedar Springs, two tables were used in each structural bay, with each table supported on two column rows. With the different column arrangement planned for the McKinney Avenue Lofts - one column dropped out to facilitate lower parking levels - the tables will each be supported on fewer columns.
