This edition of the Phius Project Spotlight Series highlights the GO Logic Shop & Office buildings in Belfast, Maine.
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Our monthly Project Spotlights highlight the cutting-edge work being done by Phius professionals and provide examples of successful design and construction strategies. We feature projects of various sizes, typologies, and climate zones, offering you a peek behind the curtain of each.
Our May Project Spotlight is: GO Logic Office/Shop in Belfast, Maine!
GO Logic LLC is a design-build firm, general contractor, and building panel manufacturer based in Belfast, Maine. It had been producing panels in a rented space for many years before acquiring land in the local business park and financing to build its own facility. Construction started in late 2022 and production began in the completed building on April 1, 2024.
The 16,000-square-foot combined office and manufacturing space became the first of its kind to earn Phius Certification. The new building allows the company to double its capacity in producing Phius-level, low-carbon structural building panels for projects throughout the Northeast. It also serves as headquarters for the company, with a two-story office wing incorporated within the overall structure. GO Logic also produces panels at another facility in Scarborough, Maine.
The intention of the design was to provide the same thermal comfort, indoor air quality, and natural light that characterizes the company’s homes. It is a wood-framed building with 23-foot-tall engineered studs and a conventional wood truss roof, coupled with a steel interior structure to support a 40-foot clear-span overhead crane. The ceiling is sheathed with 19mm cross-laminated timber panels, as are the interior walls of the office that face the shop, providing a warm and natural aesthetic in the workspace.
The walls and attic ceiling are insulated with cellulose. Wall sheathing and an interior ceiling membrane, along with a sub-slab air/vapor barrier, create the airtight layer. Windows in the shop are triple-pane, fixed PVC while the office features aluminum-clad wood, triple-pane tilt-and-turn windows and a triple-pane alu-wood entry door with ADA hardware. The office portion is heated and cooled with multi-zone heat pumps, while the production space is served by an in-floor hydronic heating system. Both spaces have mechanical ventilation: a 1,000 CFM heat-recovery unit in the shop and an 88-percent efficient ERV in the offices.
The office contains two conference rooms, a kitchen/break room, and an open studio for 15 staff members. The shop provides workspace for up to 13 carpenters, a shop manager, and logistics specialists and provides storage for onsite construction activities. Three overhead at-grade doors and one at a loading dock provide access to exterior storage and delivery of shipping containers and other building materials.
The production of panels starts at a CNC automated saw for framing materials and moves to a production line of three specialized wall-framing tables. Floor and roof panels are built on separate stationary tables. All panels are loaded via the overhead crane onto trailers inside the building to ensure safe handling in dry conditions. A zero-emission electric forklift aids in material handling.
The exterior of the building is clad in corrugated steel panels while the roof is standing seam metal. A 50-kilowatt PV array, funded 50% by a USDA REAP grant, will cover a significant portion of the process loads of the manufacturing. It is an all-electric building.
The ultimate performance goal is to offset 100 percent of the building’s energy use with on-site renewables, thereby producing new Phius buildings with zero-carbon manufacturing. The next step will be to power all the on-road delivery and installation vehicles with renewables. The buildings produced in the shop are low-carbon, wood-framed structures with wood fiber and hemp insulation. Windows and doors are pre-installed in panels. Once assembled on site, the shells are watertight and airtight, ready for roofing and siding, thus reducing construction time considerably over conventional site-built construction. The new Phius Certified facility will ensure high-quality manufacturing and working conditions for generations.
All photos courtesy of GO Logic LLC