Live webinar sponsored by the Air Barrier Association of America

The Pincushion Air Barrier: A Case Study

Presented by Kevin Larson, Mark Needham, Chris Bubser

The construction of Allianz Field in St. Paul, Minnesota, the home of Major League Soccer’s Minnesota United Soccer team, was a landmark project for many reasons. One of the hallmarks of the Allianz world-wide family of sporting venues is a state-of-the-art design and the use of leading-edge materials. In the case of Allianz field, that included hundreds of building envelope penetrations by the structural steel frame supporting the iconic fabric outer shell. The construction team responded to these challenges by establishing a robust quality management system that included multiple mockups, a thorough enclosure review process, extensive testing, and layers of on-site observations to ensure durability, maintainabilty, and long-term performance of the building envelope system.

Learning Objectives:

1. Identify common elements of a robust project quality management plan, and how the system used on this project relates to ABAA’s QAP
2. Understand how the materials used for the building enclosure on this project were affected by NFPA 285 compliance, and ways to mitigate the effects of this requirement on future projects
3. List multiple testing methods for verifying the integrity of the building envelope, the frequency they should be implemented, and describe how they were coordinated between trades and carried out on site with minimal disruption
4. Describe how the use of innovative technologies and materials, lean construction processes, and the enclosure review process contributed to increased productivity and the quality of the building envelope system

Live webinar airing on November 12, 2020 – 1:00 PM EST

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Kevin Larson

Kevin Larson is a Senior Project Manager for Olympic Companies in Minneapolis, MN.  Specializing in large scale commercial work, Kevin has been responsible for many of Olympic’s largest and most high profile projects around the Midwest, as well as several historic restoration projects. Kevin was presented the National Project of the Year Award by the American Public Works Association, APWA for the Paramount Theatre Restoration Project in Cedar Rapids, IA. Kevin has been a leader in the construction industry for 38 years, and has served on national technical committees for the Association of the Wall and Ceiling Industry (AWCI). He is currently an active member of CSI, NFPA and ASTM.   

Mark Needham

Mark Needham is a versatile project manager for ICS in Minneapolis, MN with more than a decade of experience in the construction industry. He has managed stadium construction as well as a variety of projects across the Midwest for the federal, healthcare, corporate, and K-12 market sectors. Mark was responsible for the enclosure scopes for Allianz Field including constructability, contract management, material procurement, and occupancy/turnover. Additional significant projects for Mark include the Sanford Fargo Medical Center in Fargo, ND and $205 million of construction taking place across 13 facilities for Brainerd Public Schools.

Chris Bubser

Chris Bubser has spent half his career in architecture and half in construction, but has always gravitated towards the technical side of the industry. Chris has had the good fortune to work on a wide variety of commercial and residential building types around the midwest. While a Quality Manager at Mortenson Construction, he was responsible for setting up and managing all aspects of the QA/QC process on project sites, but specialized in coordinating building enclosure systems. Chris is currently a Senior Technical Architect at LHB, where he oversees document quality and detailing for their K-12 Education studio. He is Past-Chair of the Building Enclosure Council of Minnesota.