Joint Base Lewis-McChord, WA- The future of Soldier housing is here. The U.S. Army broke ground on a military barracks project at Joint Base Lewis-McChord near Tacoma, Washington, on August 7, 2024. The new, one-of-a-kind facility will feature sustainable building materials and design techniques informed by research from the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC).
In an effort to meet Congressionally mandated sustainability goals, ERDC is working with the Services to reduce carbon emission from materials used during construction of Department of Defense facilities.
“We are trying to move in a direction which utilizes more sustainable materials during construction,” said Amy Cassidy, a research civil engineer with the ERDC’s Geotechnical and Structures Laboratory. “This program is important for the future because the timber and concrete industry is moving to more sustainable materials, and this will help us to reduce the amount of carbon where people are living.”
The pilot program will provide a case study on determining the resiliency, cost and schedule impacts of building with sustainable materials. During the process, researchers will be tracking Environmental Product Data (EPDs), schedule variances and material costs and then analyze that data in a lifecycle analyses for the building. This will be the first time data will be collected for monitoring the lifecycle from a materials standpoint of everything that will go into the building.
As construction begins on the 89,000-square-foot, three-story facility, the team will learn what sustainable materials are in the region and available to use on the contract, what their carbon emissions are and how the use of these materials will impact cost, schedule and resiliency during the life of the barracks.
“During construction we will receive data about where the materials are coming from and what the cradle to gate emissions are. When the project is finished, we will track maintenance and longevity of how these sustainable materials are performing,” said Cassidy.
While reducing the carbon footprint and creating a cleaner future is the main goal of these new barracks, the new facility will also greatly improve the lives of the Soldiers who will be living there.
“When we can have cleaner concrete, or use sustainable materials like timber, it benefits not only the Soldiers, but the environment they will be living in,” Cassidy said.
"Through better and more innovative building techniques, the Corps of Engineers has designed a barracks that is cost-competitive and will provide the highest quality of life for our Soldiers while reducing emissions and the impact on the environment," said Paul Farnan, principal deputy assistant secretary of the Army for installations, energy, and environment. “We are proving that we can build better; we can save money and increase our resilience and lower our emissions and still deliver the very highest levels of quality for our Soldiers," said Farnan.”
The hope is that the barracks project will help set a standard for the materials used in the construction of future buildings. The pilot program will be monitored during construction to get real time data to see how resilient these materials are and shape the future for a better tomorrow.