Waterloo 22-Story Dormitory

The city of Waterloo, Ontario, located just west of Toronto is a university town. It’s also a hotbed for ICF construction, and the city has built a number of massive ICF student housing projects in recent years. The latest is a 22-story dormitory, with weight-bearing ICF walls. It sets a new benchmark as the tallest ICF building in North America, and also for the amount of 12”-core ICFs used in a single building.

This project has pioneered the use of ICFs in the high-rise market, and developed techniques that the entire industry will benefit from. In addition to the tremendous challenges faced by ICF Installer RV Construction, general contractor XDG Construction was under enormous time pressures. As a student rental apartment, the building had to be opened by Sept 1. Missing this deadline meant the owner would lose an entire year of rent, so timing was absolutely critical. But they couldn’t start construction until the previous school year ended, so they only had 13 months from start to finish for a 104,000-sq.-ft. building. . The ICF schedule called for completing a floor a week including precast floors.