A modern, curvy addition to a century-old art museum. A state welcome center inspired by wind turbines and sand dunes. An industrial recycling facility supporting a heavy kiln and settling chamber.
What do all these projects have in common?
They were all detailed in SDS2, and they all share the honor of being SDS2 Solid Steel Award winners. From artistic commercial architecture to powerhouse industrial facilities, these and other winning projects showcase the best steel projects from around the world.
Judged on aesthetics, complexity, and overall cool factor, the competition highlights the great range of work our users are doing and the projects they’re bringing to life in all sectors of structural steel.
Here’s a closer look at the 2022 award winners, announced during SDS2 Summit 2022 in San Antonio, Texas.
This new corporate headquarters for a luxury aviation company in Cleveland, OH was detailed by Lincoln Engineering Group. It features numerous sloping columns, round Y-shaped columns, and complex eyebrow framing with skewed/sloping beams found at multiple levels. Add in stairs, rails, vertical bracing to sloping columns and beams, embeds, and ladders, and this project pretty much had it all. Lincoln Engineering Group provided full wrap-around templates for cutting and layout of the project’s many round columns. They worked closely with all stakeholders, from the consulting engineer to the fabricator and erector, and completed the fast-paced project with only one field call—which was not related to their detailing.
If this project seems familiar to you, that’s because BV Detailing & Design won the same award for Vanderbilt Residential College A back in 2020. The next project in the series at Vanderbilt University in Nashville proved no less impressive than the first. The dormitory renovation featured a roofline that was predominantly hip and valley, as well as elaborate stone and brick exterior features—including chimneys, entrances, and penthouse parapets—that required meticulously coordinated structural supports. The BV team completed the project on a “just-in-time” detailing cycle of 2-3 weeks, for which the SDS2 model was critical.
Nebraska’s largest art museum opened its doors in 1931, and a recent expansion project is making it even larger with an additional 42,000 square feet of gallery space and a new indoor and outdoor art experience. The project was detailed by KL&A and featured a rolled grand stairway, a 40-foot cantilevered entry, a curving roof that transitions the old building to the new, and a twisting glass wall system.
SDS2’s connection design and 3D modeling capabilities were critical to the project’s completion. Because of the complex geometry, the team used SDS2 to come up with connection concepts that were then reviewed by the engineering teams. And when architecture and engineering software could not adequately define the project’s complex geometry, SDS2 was used to bring the design intent into focus.
A seven-gate expansion and upgrade to Logan International Airport, the largest airport in New England and one of the busiest in the United States, was detailed by Beauce Atlas. The most notable design challenge was the fully exposed pipe columns that connected roof to ground in the main concourse. An 18-inch stub tapered to a 24-inch diameter column, which then split into two, requiring many complex moment connections. The Beauce Atlas team was able to streamline the project greatly with SDS2—by utilizing automated connections wherever possible, they could focus on the more challenging design problems and respect their client’s deadlines.
In addition to the challenging geometry on the 333-ton project, Steelweb, Inc., also had to manage many design conflicts after the original EOR left the project, leading to numerous RFIs and extra detailing time. AZR, or American Zinc Recycling, is a leading recycler of electric arc furnace dust. The industrial repair project for their Chicago, Illinois, facility featured a large settling chamber hopper and supporting framing with sloped beams. SDS2 was setup to meet the demanding design criteria, though several connections had to be designed by a registered connection engineer due to the significant load requirements. Steelweb used snapshots from SDS2 to communicate and clarify design intent after the EOR change, as well as to illustrate numerous clashes with siding materials.
Located in Charleston, Missouri, this pet food facility detailed by Ovation Services featured 5,300 tons of steel with plated floors, provisions for industrial silos, thermal break connections, HSS vertical brace receiving beams, a complex girt system, and much more. The detailing team collaborated frequently with other trades, bringing IFC models into SDS2 to ensure accuracy between the structural steel, industrial equipment, and the other trades involved.
With a roofline designed to resemble wind turbine blades and an exterior representative of sand dunes, the Kankakee Welcome Center will serve as a striking first impression to many travelers entering Indiana on I-65—just as the steel model made an impression on SDS2 customer voters. Detailed by Arteras, Inc., the winning project for the 2022 Customer’s Choice Award features many rolled shapes and framing and difficult connections between wood and steel, including a Raker beam connection and a bracket connection for a two-directional wooden beam.
Finalists for the top prizes this year included:
Congratulations to all winners and finalists, and thank you to all who shared their work with us!