Elkhart County Justice Complex

Quick Points:

• Thermally efficient wall panels provide security as well as insulation
• Rigorous schedule due to court order closing existing overcrowded facility

Aesthetics and security in precast jail

There are ground breaking ideas in this new correctional facility on an 80-acre Greenfield site outside a Midwestern town.

"We want to reduce operational costs and increase efficiency," says the sheriff of this new correctional facility. “That’s exactly what we expect this facility to do.”

One way the designers intended the building to accomplished that this was by using load bearing thermally efficient precast wall panels for the 415,900-square-foot project’s envelope. The 28-foot high structurally non-composite panels encase a two-inch layer of rigid polyisocyanurate foam for a composite R-12.

Security is paramount at the new facility and is one of the drivers behind the design team’s decision to use precast. The precast concrete wall panels were deemed durable enough to be used for the walls for the secure perimeter, inmate housing minimum security wing and other inmate occupied areas.

In the maximum security wing, modular precast units house inmates. The insulated wall system is also used on a utility building as well as a campus warehouse. The buildings were constructed in phases under 15 separate bid packages.

Aesthetics

On the exterior face of the buildings, three different precast finishes were used to help break up the mass of the walls. Many panels feature a fractured fin texture created by a vertical rib formliner. In others, exposed red aggregate insets in an acid-washed buff field add variety and accent to the facade. In selected corners of the housing unit, full depth brick veneer covers the precast as a way to provide a common element to the structure with other buildings on the campus. The brick complements the main entrance, where it was used in cavity wall construction to add warmth to the court and visitor’s entrance, setting it off from the rest of the building.

Schedule

The new facility came about as a result of a class action law suit regarding serious overpopulation and related issues associated with overcrowding, so schedule was also a consideration in the choice of materials. Because the precast is manufactured off site while the site is being prepared, construction of the buildings was able to stay on schedule.