The Universidad del Rosario campus in Bogotá is a PEB Corp Group project: 11,500 m² (about 123,800 sq ft) of industrialized steel construction, delivered in 100 days. PEB Corp provided the structural engineering and the BIM model, and SmartBrix Construction carried out on-site erection. For a university, that schedule makes it possible to open classrooms and academic spaces within a single term, without the long schedules of traditional construction.
- Area: 11,500 m²
- Schedule: 100 days
- Building type: University campus / educational building
- Campuses: Sede Mutis and Sede Norte, Bogotá
- Country: Colombia
- Design code: NSR-10
- System: Industrialized cold-formed steel construction
The challenge: delivering within the academic calendar
Educational infrastructure runs on the academic calendar: a building that is not ready on time can delay an entire semester. At Universidad del Rosario, the challenge was to deliver 11,500 m² of academic space on a very tight schedule. The structure had to comply with Colombia's NSR-10 seismic code, which applies to every public-use building in the country.
The solution: prefabrication and parallel erection
PEB Corp designed the campus structure for industrialized steel construction. The structural components were prefabricated off-site while erection was planned on site, so much of the work advanced in parallel. Traditional construction runs those steps in sequence, which is its main bottleneck. The structure was designed and verified to NSR-10, which sets the seismic performance required of a university building.
Outcome: 11,500 m² in 100 days
The 11,500 m² campus was delivered in 100 days. The case shows the value of prefabrication for institutions that need to bring academic space online within a fixed calendar. For them, industrialization is a matter of cost, but above all of time to operation. A reference project’s area and delivery period describe that case; they do not guarantee another building’s schedule.
This project is part of the PEB Corp Group's work in industrialized steel construction in Colombia for the education sector, where delivery schedule and NSR-10 design are decisive.
Building system and roles within the group
On the Universidad del Rosario campus (Sede Mutis and Sede Norte, Bogotá), roles within the PEB Corp Group were divided as follows:
- Engineering: PEB Corp provided the structural engineering and the BIM model.
- Structure: cold-formed steel, prefabricated off-site.
- Erection: crews from SmartBrix Construction, the group's construction unit, carried out on-site erection. On campuses like this one, they work in phases so academic operations are not interrupted.
At 11,500 m² in 100 days, the project is the group's speed reference for educational buildings. The system sustains an erection rate of up to 380 m² (about 4,090 sq ft) per day per crew; that figure covers erection of the structure, not the total building schedule. The whole process runs under the PEB Corp Group's ISO 9001, 14001, 45001, and 37001 certifications.
See also the Universidad del Rosario project in the SmartBrix Construction portfolio.
The PEB Corp Group has been delivering projects since 2009. On some of our projects, the cold-formed steel structure was fabricated at the group plant (NewCon Steel®, in operation since 2018); on others, the group carried out the installation.