Sustainable Innovation in Green Construction for the Preservation of Cultural Heritage

CH. Karnchang Public Company Limited has collaborated with Insee Superblock Company Limited to change the construction materials specified in the contract from lightweight concrete block walls to reinforced lightweight concrete walls. This was done by employing Building Information Modeling (BIM) in the construction planning and production process. The aim is to improve work quality, increase speed, reduce machinery and labor usage, minimize construction waste, and lessen environmental impact.

This implementation confirms the effectiveness of the working method the company previously applied in earlier projects, which received high satisfaction from designers and owners. In summary, the benefits of this change include:

1. Using reinforced lightweight concrete walls inside the building at varying heights according to each floor level. These walls can be designed to bear loads and lateral forces as required, are water-resistant, can be cut to specified lengths, reduce leftover construction waste, optimize resource use, and lower disposal costs.
2. The production uses over 40% recycled materials by weight, 100% local materials, holds a green certification label, and has passed fire resistance tests up to 4 hours, ensuring all areas using these walls have fire protection.
3. Construction reduces the number of workers, transportation trips, and/or lifting operations to the building, significantly shortens the construction time, and improves the quality of the finished work as well as site cleanliness, far better than the previous method.

Additionally, a precast system has been applied as an alternative method. This ensures the size, dimensions, and surface finish of each component are consistent and neat, addressing the problem of inconsistency common in conventional construction due to the repetitive and detailed nature of works such as window frames and reinforced concrete fences.