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5 Things You Didn’t Know About Concrete, and How Self-Perform Makes a Difference

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5 Things You Didn’t Know About Concrete, and How Self-Perform Makes a Difference

4 minute read

Concrete shows up early on nearly every project, but the scope itself involves decisions that affect schedule, performance, embodied carbon and subsequent coordination. The examples below highlight aspects of concrete work that are often overlooked, along with how they appear on real projects with the help of self‑performing concrete teams.

1. Concrete Can Be More Sustainable Than You Think

Concrete carries a large embodied carbon footprint, but mix design adjustments can significantly reduce it when planned early. This typically involves collaboration between engineers, suppliers and field teams to ensure the mix performs consistently during placement and curing.

PROJECT EXAMPLE

Concrete Sustainability in Action

On the Silicon Valley Office project, the team implemented a lower carbon concrete mix design developed with DPR’s self-perform work and operations teams, as well as its’ strategic partner GPLA. The mix incorporated fly ash, slag and captured CO₂, reducing embodied carbon by 38% compared to typical industry mixes. Field crews monitored how the mix behaved during placement and curing to maintain strength and finish quality.

Low carbon concrete is becoming more common, but it still requires planning for testing, temperature considerations and schedule alignment.

2. Concrete Can Be… Pretty

When concrete serves as an architectural finish, the work becomes more detailed. Formwork selection, joint layout, vibration technique and curing practices determine the final appearance. Mockups are essential for aligning expectations before production pours begin.

PROJECT EXAMPLE

Concrete Aesthetics in Action

The Joan and Sanford I. Weill Neurosciences Building in San Francisco features extensive architectural concrete, including exposed columns and six-story shear walls. DPR self‑performed $60 million in scope, including all concrete, and used mockups to test surface texture, tie patterns and color uniformity to ensure consistency across all visible surfaces. Because these elements remain exposed, each placement had to meet established appearance requirements.

Architectural concrete often requires slower, more controlled sequencing, with additional checks during and after each pour.

3. Concrete Can Be Poured 74 Floors High

Vertical concrete work introduces challenges related to pumping pressure, formwork cycles, safety logistics and tight site constraints. Reliable sequencing is critical because each floor influences the next trade’s ability to proceed.

PROJECT EXAMPLE

High-rise Concrete in Action

Waterline is a 74‑story tower in downtown Austin and, once open, will be the tallest building in Texas. Concrete operations focus on predictable floor cycles, coordination with adjacent work and careful management of pumping operations in a dense urban environment. The vertical pace ultimately determines how quickly the structure rises. DPR’s self‑perform concrete teams placed massive structural elements, including 3,213 cubic yards for the mat foundation and 91 exposed mega‑columns, helping maintain predictable floor cycles

High‑rise concrete highlights how much early planning and consistent cycle timing matter for the overall schedule.

View Topping Out Ceremony

4. Concrete Pours Can Be Massive

Some projects require concrete volumes and pacing that leave almost no room for adjustment once work begins. These pours rely on early embed verification, coordinated trucking, temperature control and enough crews to maintain consistent placement throughout long operations.

PROJECT EXAMPLE

Large Concrete Pour in Action

The Abilene Data Center campus is expanding into an eight building, roughly 4-million sq. ft. development built for high density AI workloads. Concrete activity on the project reaches up to 4,000 cubic yards per day, supported by tightly coordinated batching and delivery. With as many as 8,500 workers onsite daily, planning access, sequencing and inspection becomes essential. Self-perform control of concrete helps the team maintain pace on a fast-track schedule where losing a day can affect multiple downstream phases.

Large pours like these show how much early planning, verification and logistics influence both quality and schedule on high‑demand projects.

On other projects, the challenge is scale itself, shifting from thousands of cubic yards a day to much smaller pours that demand tighter control.

5. Concrete Can Be Accurate to the Millimeter

Concrete placement can meet very tight tolerances when crews verify formwork before a pour. On projects that use prefabricated exterior panels, the slab edge must land within the required tolerance so the panels can be installed as designed.

PROJECT EXAMPLE

Concrete Accuracy in Action

At Children's Hospital of Richmond at VCU, the team delivered the exterior as off‑site prefabricated panels, limiting laydown and congestion. Because those panels connect directly to the structure, the concrete slab edge carried a ± 1/2‑inch tolerance. Before each pour, self‑perform crews established a building control network, used laser scanning to check slab‑edge formwork and corrected any variances prior to placement, keeping the pour sequence on track and preserving the tolerances needed for panel installation.

With layout tied to a shared model and scanning done before concrete sets, the slab edge lands within spec, demonstrating that with the right process, concrete work can deliver millimeter level accuracy on complex, prefabrication driven jobs.

Planning Ahead With Concrete

Concrete affects much more than how the structure comes out of the ground. Choices around mix design, architectural expectations, high‑rise sequencing, large‑volume planning and tolerance verification all influence how smoothly later work proceeds. Recognizing these less visible aspects helps teams plan more effectively and reduce risk across the life of a project.