Mar 27, 2012 - Claremont, Calif. -

Jerry Clarke-Ames, president of BubbleDeck North America, holds two sizes of BubbleDeck balls that will be installed in HMC's teaching and learning building. The structure will contain 90,000 of these balls.

BubbleDeck panels were fabricated at US Concrete in San Diego.

The install of BubbleDeck that began this week at Harvey Mudd College marks two firsts for the “green” building technology.   

The College’s new teaching and learning building will be the first academic building in the nation and the first of any structure in California to use the patented floor slab system.

“It’s always risky to be the first in anything, and it takes real vision to really understand and be willing to take that risk and appreciate innovation the way I think this school does,” said Leslie Cliffe, associate principal for Boora Architects, which designed HMC’s new academic building.

The BubbleDeck system is being installed using the 161-foot crane currently seen on campus. Flatbed trucks stacked with the prefabbed slabs—which look like concrete rectangles topped by giant Ping-Pong balls—arrive at the Liquidambar Mall. The crane then hoists the slabs onto the site and into their precise positions.

“The beauty with BubbleDeck is the structure that carries the load is actually in the slab itself. It’s not transferring it to beams and then to girders,” said David Dower, assistant vice president of HMC’s Planning and Construction. 

Unlike traditional slabs, BubbleDeck uses about 35 percent less concrete, allows for flexible design and saves time—all while maintaining the same strength and stability. It achieves this by using hollow, plastic spheres that create the distance needed between the slab’s top and bottom rebar. Because it weighs less, the BubbleDeck system requires no support beams and allows for longer spans between columns.

BubbleDeck also boasts several green factors that made it a perfect candidate for HMC’s commitment to sustainable design. It uses less concrete, which translates to lower CO2 emissions that otherwise would have resulted from any additional concrete’s manufacture and transport. The spheres themselves are made from recycled plastic milk jugs. Plus, the slabs’ steel and plastic contents can all be recycled should the building ever be renovated or demolished in the future.

BubbleDeck balls, signed by HMC students, faculty, staff and alumni will be placed in one of the final slabs, which will be installed when the building receives its roof.