GFRC at Skyscraper Scale: Constructing Miami’s “Scorpion Tower”
- Course Number: S1042
- Credits: 2 hours
- Instructor: Ellen C. Huang, PE
- Price: $20
Course Outline
This course uses the construction of Miami’s “Scorpion Tower” (One Thousand Museum) as a real-world case study in turning radical architecture into a buildable, safe, and sellable high-rise. Participants follow the project from deep foundations in porous coastal limestone through a record-scale concrete mat pour, then into the defining innovation: a structural exoskeleton formed with glass fiber reinforced concrete (GFRC) panels used as permanent formwork around reinforced steel, later infilled with high-strength concrete. Along the way, the course highlights coordination across global fabrication and shipping, tolerance management and cumulative misalignment, field problem-solving with engineered approvals, vertical-transport constraints (buck hoists), interior fit-out challenges from non-repeating floors, and resilience planning when Hurricane Irma strikes mid-build. The focus is practical: what went wrong, what worked, and what management and engineering controls helped the team recover schedule while protecting quality and safety.
At the end of this course, there will be a multiple-choice, open-book quiz designed to enhance your understanding of the course material.
Learning Objectives
At the conclusion of this course, the student will:
- Be able to explain why porous coastal geology drives deep foundation and mat-pour strategies in Miami high-rises.
- Be able to describe how GFRC panels can function as permanent formwork for complex exoskeleton columns.
- Be able to identify common tolerance/fit-up failure modes (and escalation paths) in modular facade/structural panel systems.
- Be able to apply schedule, logistics, and risk controls for high-rise construction under weather and access constraints.
Course Content
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