‘Mockup’ process streamlines Durham courthouse project in Oshawa, Ontario

About a year prior to the construction start of the Durham Consolidated Courthouse in Oshawa, the building/design team took the unusual step of building a full-scale reproduction of a courtroom in a warehouse offsite. No expense was spared to build a $300,000 mockup that would be the mould for the 33 courtrooms contained in the 455,000-square-foot court complex.

About a year prior to the construction start of the Durham Consolidated Courthouse in Oshawa, the building/design team took the unusual step of building a full-scale reproduction of a courtroom in a warehouse offsite.

No expense was spared to build a $300,000 mockup that would be the mould for the 33 courtrooms contained in the 455,000-square-foot court complex.

By ironing out design and construction bugs during the mockup, the team eliminated potential change orders that could have set the $334 million project two to three weeks behind schedule, says Don Gilliland, construction manager of PCL Constructors Canada Inc., the project’s construction manager.

The mockup also allowed the building team to organize a slate of manufacturing schedules for materials to ensure timely deliveries.

The recently completed complex is the first courthouse in Ontario to be delivered as a full DBFM (design, build, finance and maintain) project by Infrastructure Ontario (IO). The development/building consortium’s obligations include the financing, operation and maintenance of the building over the next 30 years.

While mockups as large as the courtroom are unusual, Gilliland says they are likely to be used more often on large design-build projects where design repetition is common. Mockups also prove useful in this type of project because budgets and schedules are set in stone — design changes during construction are not permitted under contractual obligations.

The courthouse mockup used the same high-end finishes and materials that would make up the actual 33 courtrooms in the complex, says Robert Young, the Ministry of the Attorney General’s architect at the time who worked extensively on the courthouse with the project’s architectural team of WZMH Architects and Cannon Design.

He adds the process also involved the installation of the actual electrical, audio-visual and information technology systems.

Prior to final approval, the mockup was evaluated by the stakeholders (including judges and attorneys) to work out flaws in the design, says Young, now a project architect with KMA Architects. “We made a lot of adjustments,” including changes to furnishings and bulkheads for improved lighting and sightlines.

“Durham was the opportunity for the ministry to try out a lot of new accessible millwork and furnishings,” he says, adding several accessible prototypes (including witness and jury boxes) were installed.

It is not the first courthouse mockup in Ontario. Over the past decade, Brampton, Hamilton and Windsor courthouses used one common mockup for their courtrooms. But unlike Durham, those projects were not delivered under the Alternate Financing and Procurement model so the mockup wasn’t as critical to the final design, says Young.

The Durham courthouse complex was completed in November, three weeks ahead of schedule. One of PCL’s hurdles came during the preferred performance stage when the construction manager was instructed by IO to revise the layout of the entire 455,000-square foot complex, which included the removal of one floor.

PCL had good reason to meet the tight construction schedule. The constructor was subject to $35,000 in liquidated damages per day in carrying costs for delays and $35,000 per day in operation penalty issues, says Gilliland.

Through various actions, including re-sequencing work on site and the use of additional construction equipment, PCL moved the project ahead swiftly, he says. Also, a number of “soft starts” (such as rough-ins) were done four to six weeks prior to scheduled construction to help the building team “gain momentum” and the trades “debug a few things.”

The complex consolidates eight courthouses from the region and is on target for a LEED Silver certification for new construction. Under LEED’s existing buildings program, the consortium has its sights set on a Gold certification for operating protocols, says Peter Wilson, IO’s vice-president of project delivery. Both LEED certificates fit squarely into IO’s policy on sustainability in which the use of existing infrastructure and eco-friendly materials are key elements.

The complex won two awards, one for project finance from The Canadian Council for Public-Private Partnerships and the other for building design by the American Institute of Architects’ publication Justice Facilities Review.