After 14 hours, 654 trucks, and more than 6,500 cubic yards of concrete, the foundation has been set for the $1.5 billion Foster+Partners-designed Pavilion on Penn Medicine’s Campus. The concrete pour, which took place on Saturday, July 8, was the largest concrete pour in Philly’s history.
Penn Medicine captured the 14-hour pour and condensed it into this mesmerizing one-minute video, PhillyVoice first reported. The pour included 6,540 cubic yards of concrete—enough to fill a Goodyear blimp—onto the site of the former Penn Medicine tower. That amount surpassed the 5,850 cubic yards of concrete poured at the W/Element Hotels site in Center City.
The Penn Medicine tower was demolished in 2016, but Penn Medicine didn’t officially break ground on the Pavilion until May of this year. Before the concrete pour, 965 tons of reinforcement steel were installed, also serving as the 1.25 million-square-foot building’s foundation.
The Pavilion is a 17-story project that will include 500 patient rooms and four floors of operating rooms. Foster+Partners’ renderings for the project were first revealed in November 2016. Construction is set to finish up in 2021.