Firehouse Ministries shelter, Birmingham, Ala.

by Rosa Soto | November 15, 2022 12:00 am

Dunn Building Co. LLC built Firehouse Ministries’ shelter for unhoused people in Birmingham, Ala., on a restrictive construction site.

Craig Fowler, Tennessee Valley area manager at Dunn Building, says, “One of the biggest challenges on this project was the amount of construction space onsite. The building line touched the property line on three sides, allowing very little space for material laydown and maneuvering equipment. To work around these space challenges, the construction team had to plan deliveries to take place in a manner that minimized the need for storing material.”

Instead of staging materials in a laydown area, most materials were delivered and taken directly to their final destinations. “Materials that did require staging in the laydown area had to be consolidated and stacked so that the first materials needed would be easily accessible, and not require sorting through to find them,” Fowler says. “This also required detailed planning and organization.”

Dunn Building erected Varco Pruden Buildings’ metal building system. The 28,000-square-foot building has several eave heights that average about 14 feet.

On the roof, Dunn Building installed Varco Pruden’s 24-inch-wide, 24-gauge steel standing seam roof system in Kynar 500 Cool Cotton White. Dunn Building insulated the roof with Varco Pruden’s Thermalift insulation system, which is rated R-32.9. Bay Insulation Systems Inc. supplied fiberglass blanket insulation.

For walls on the north side of the building, Dunn Building vertically installed Metl- Span’s 2 1/2-inch-thick striated insulated metal panels (IMPs) in Weathered Zinc. For walls on the east, west and south sides, Dunn Building horizontally installed Metl-Span’s 4-inch-thick 7.2 IMPs.

“The main portion of the building featured Weathered Zinc colored panels,” Fowler says. “However, the shelter portion of the building was highlighted in Colonial Red to carry on the firehouse theme.”

Source URL: https://www.metalarchitecture.com/projects/firehouse-ministries-shelter-birmingham-ala/

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