Walking into the AC Hotel Portland construction office for the first time, one might notice something unusual. Sitting in the center of the main office, next to several desks with engineers hard at work, is a king bed. When you turn the corner, you find full hotel accommodations, along with two beautiful high-end restrooms. Not what one would expect at a construction site office.

Mortenson built a full-scale mock-up of a guest room within their own office for the AC Hotel Portland project, so the architect and customer could see a real-life representation of layout and finishes. The mock-up has let the customer tweak aspects of the design, including the overall look of the interior finishes. Even with construction well underway, the team still uses the mock-up. “Everything is installed in the mock-up exactly as it will be on-site,” Mortenson project manager Christian Colman said. “We’ve continued to add little pieces to be confident going into the actual building. By using the mock-up for pre-installation learning purposes, it prevents any rework. Each member of the team knows exactly where each item is to be installed, down to the stud locations and shower mounting boxes. It’s an awesome quality control tool.”

As the project moves into its interior construction phase this spring, lessons learned from the mock-up will be implemented directly into final construction. 

"The mockup can be looked at as a production preparation process," Said lean specialist Lyle Eiseman. "Where we take an element of the work and build it out prior to actual construction so  all end users can see what they are getting and therefore make adjustments so as to not affect construction workflow. It also identifies any constructability issue that can be corrected prior to construction. This creates visual management of seeing the product prior to build."