The growing enrollment of school age children and the aging of existing educational facilities in North America has created a high demand over the last few years for new schools. The challenge here was to construct an elementary school with the highest quality construction materials in an expedient manner, in a geographic area with a large population of school-age children..

In response to this new demand, precast/prestressed concrete products have become an increasingly popular choice of material for schools due to high material quality, fast construction, low maintenance costs, superior aesthetics, and ease of expandability. LaSalle Public School was constructed with over 2,040 m2 (22,000 square feet) of precast/prestressed hollow core planks as the suspended 2nd floor system. These slabs were 203 mm (8 in) thick, 1220 mm (4 ft) wide and spanned in some areas up to 9 m (30 ft) while having to support a uniformly distributed superimposed live load of 4.8 kN/m2 (100 psf). This provided large open spaces and enabled flexibility in room layouts for the floor below. The suspended 2nd floor area was completely installed, grouted and welded as necessary in only 3 1/2 working days.

These incredible benefits and the speed with which the hollow core product can be installed led the designers of LaSalle Public School to choose precast concrete construction.

Further, with safety being such an important issue for our children in today's society, precast/prestressed products have proven to be even more valuable. Precast can also offer "built-to-last" exterior and interior walls that can withstand heavy use/loading and extreme weather conditions. Precast concrete is made from non-combustible materials and meets all fire-code requirements.

General Contractor: Elmara Construction Company Ltd.
Architect: J. P. Thompson Architects
Precaster: Prestressed Systems Inc. (The Prestressed Group)