EIFS in the Spotlight: Keauhou Lane, Honolulu

Keauhou Lane is a unique project in Honolulu – a so-called Transit Oriented Development (TOD), an exciting trend in creating vibrant livable communities which are compact and walkable, centered on high quality rail systems.  The architects for the Keauhou Lane TOD wanted the look of stone and metal in unique colors to mimic the salt beds endemic to the area. The cost of the natural materials were too great to build the project.  Dryvit showed a skeptical architect the TerraNeo® and Reflectit™ finishes that would provide an affordable alternative to the originally specified products.  As a result, the project was able to be built in the aesthetic the architect and the owner desired.

“’Value engineer’ is not a positive thing when it comes to an architect. No one wants to hear those words, but something has to go, and what’s the first thing to go? Finishes,” said Jennifer Camp, AIA, project architect at Principal Hierarchy, LLC. “So the contractor was gracious enough to give us a suggestion. ‘Hey, let’s use this Dryvit product,’ and I was like, well wait a minute, we want metal. How is Dryvit going to be able to provide that? We want stone. How are they going to be able to provide stone?  At the end of the day we don’t see the Dryvit finish as a compromise at all. The ‘value’ in that value engineering was we got the look we wanted and the project got built. We couldn’t afford it before, and now we can.”

And, importantly, Camp saw the Dryvit Outsulation® Plus MD system as a great deal more than just a winning aesthetic solution for the building exterior. The long-term performance values were just as important a consideration.  “You need to make sure that this product, at the end of the day, is going to lead to a successful project, to be viable for 150 years. Can it stay up? Can it meet that requirement?,” Camp said. “The Dryvit system gave us the performance we needed to be very confident this project will stand the test of time.”

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