A Different Take on Site-cast Concrete Slowly Gains Ground in Canada

With wooden forms spread along a floor slab like sidewalk segments and a crane nearby ready to lift cured wall panels into place, this isn’t your typical site-cast concrete.

The tilt-up building process, which traces its roots back more than a century, boils down to casting concrete wall panels and other building elements on forms laid flat on a building slab, or a specially-built casting bed. Once cured, a crane simply hoists — or “tilts-up” — the panels into place.

As the individual concrete panels are raised, crews secure wall segments with braces and then fasten the separate pieces together.Incorporating some of the perks of both cast-in-place and off-site precast, the tilt-up method continues to earn market share, chipping away at the more conventional approaches.