Put a lid on it! | Campus Next | Washington University in St. Louis

Last summer, crews worked 16 hours a day to excavate the east end site in preparation for the underground parking garage. Fast forward 11 months to early May, when work began to pour the top, or the lid, of the garage.

The work documented here was the project’s largest one-day concrete pour to date:

Construction worker in yellow shirt looks on as concrete is being poured into a large form. Text on the image reads: 112 truckloads of concrete poured without interruption for 12 hours

The footprint of the garage is so large that the lid is poured in segments:

Large red construction cranes dominate a vast construction site. Text on image reads: 10 percent of the overall lid poured

The first segment poured nearly 900 cubic yards of concrete, equivalent to pouring over a million Starbucks venti coffees. But, as we advised in The Dirt on the Dirt, don’t drink the concrete!

Construction workers in yellow and orange shirts work atop a rooftop concrete pour with a big red and white truck in the background. Text on the image reads: Equivalent to 11,700 beer kegs and 1,350,000 venti coffees

Cylinders of concrete are obtained from every 50 cubic yards of concrete poured so compressive-strength tests can be conducted:

Construction worker in yellow shirt takes safety samples of concrete. Text on the image reads: Samples regularly obtained for safety tests

Substantial manpower was required for each segment poured:

Workers on the site examine the concrete being poured. Text on the image reads: More than 30 onsite workers place and monitor the concrete

It was a gargantuan effort, but soon the concrete roof will completely disappear from view: At the end of the East End Transformation, the lid of the underground garage will be covered by the landscape of Tisch Park.