From amphitheater canopies the size of football fields to staircases that double as sculpture, the 2025 Allplan Award winners for steel projects remind us why we love steel: it bends, twists, and rises to meet imagination head-on.
Formerly known as the SDS2 Solid Steel Awards, these projects highlight the absolute best work being done in SDS2 software around the world, in a range of categories that encompass everything from the heaviest trusses to the finest architectural details.
Here’s a closer look at this year’s impressive winners.
CUSTOMER'S CHOICE AWARD
Mote Science Education Aquarium
- Detailing team: VectorShades LLC
- Location: Sarasota County, Florida
- Tonnage: 435
The Mote Science Education Aquarium is a seaside monument to marine discovery and sustainability. Built to hold over one million gallons of water in tanks and displays, its rounded structure with sloping sides gives the impression of a ship.
One of the project’s most notable features is a self-supporting skin made of metal panels that are attached to the structural steel with vertical angle connections. By leveraging SDS2, the detailing team effectively managed slope-sensitive column and beam connections and meticulously aligned support angles using IFC skin model imports.
COMMERCIAL: SMALL TONNAGE (<700 tons)
Grand Prize: The Lakehouse
- Detailing team: KL&A Engineers & Builders
- Location: Crescent, Iowa
- Tonnage: 435
Some of the most creative expressions of structural steel design are found in private residences where architects are given carte blanche to blend bold forms and unique materials to deliver individualized grandeur. “The Lakehouse” in Cresent, Iowa, is no exception. Its artfully curved, cantilevered roof, framed by conically rolled HSS16x16 members, was so specialized that it could only be produced by a single rolling facility in the entire country.
The unique geometry also required a unique approach to connection design. Many connections had to be conceptualized in SDS2 before engineering calculations could even begin. SDS2 played a critical role in visualizing and defining these connections in three dimensions, allowing the detailing team to explore feasible connection strategies.
SDS2 served as the primary tool for resolving these and other spatial challenges as well, helping the team visualize and interpret elements that traditional architectural or engineering software could not handle.
Second Place: The Riverside Amphitheater
- Detailing team: Ovation Services, LLC
- Location: Riverside, Missouri
- Tonnage: 400
The Riverside Amphitheater may be in our small tonnage category, by any other metric, the project is a big deal. The $135 million outdoor music venue is set to open in Kansas City in 2026, spanning 165 acres with multiple steel structures—including its centerpiece, a 70-foot tall, 100,000-square-foot canopy roof that will offer cover to the majority of its 16,000 seats.
The project demanded advanced detailing for multiple interconnected, rotated, and sloped buildings, including dramatic “scrim” frames with complex rolled and spiral-cut steel. In a notable feat, all of the structures were detailed in the same SDS2 model using a single work point. The Ovation team also encountered unique connection challenges—like six-way nodes and varied braces and moments—which were solved through precise modeling and coordination in SDS2.
COMMERCIAL: LARGE TONNAGE (>700 tons)
Grand Prize: Acrisure Amphitheater Canopy
- Detailers team: Universal Detailing
- Location: Grand Rapids, Michigan
- Tonnage: 1,085
Steel takes center stage in another award-winning riverfront event venue—this one in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The Acrisure Amphitheater’s signature feature is a football-shaped and football-field-sized canopy spanning 340 feet by 180 feet. The massive structure is supported by six colossal 30-inch round columns, three on each side, which came together at two Cast Connex nodes weighing over eight tons.
The trusses for the canopy itself were designed for a mix of field and shop assembly. Enormous axial and sheer loads distributed across the structure required almost all custom designed connections, many of which utilized 1 1/8-inch bolts with larger than normal clearances.
The detailing team showed exceptional skill in using SDS2 for this project, applying advanced features like IFC model imports, custom property tracking, and precise scan alignment to tackle complex geometry and connection challenges with confidence and accuracy.
Second Place: Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Expansion
- Detailers: Lincoln Engineering Group
- Location: Cleveland, Ohio
- Tonnage: 850
Cleveland’s Rock & Roll Hall of Fame is striking a new chord with a $135 million expansion on the shores of Lake Erie. The addition effectively doubles the size of the museum with a public atrium, classrooms, a performance venue, and greenery-clad roof. Its design fuses with the original structure imaged by the famous I.M. Pei, who designed the Louvre museum’s glass pyramid and other iconic structures.
Beneath the glass and greenery, the building’s steel structure features segmented, skewed, and sloped built-up plate girders that cantilever over columns, requiring bolted field splices. A striking cast-in-place concrete ellipse anchors a sleek new multipurpose room, while exposed mass timber framing sits alongside custom galvanized perimeter steel. Beneath the new atrium’s tiered seating, hidden steel supports bear significant loads, and specialty field-spliced welded trusses tie the system together. SDS2 helped the detailing team bring all these elements into harmony with advanced visualization, accurate fit-up, and seamless collaboration across trades.
INDUSTRIAL
Grand Prize: Novelis Corporation Recycle Plant
- Detailers: Cronus Steel Detailing
- Location: Arizona
- Tonnage: 210
The Novelis Corporation is the world’s leading provider of sustainable aluminum products and recycling. To bring one of their latest facilities to life, the team at Cronus Steel Detailing merged complex ductwork systems and structural elements together in a single SDS2 model, setting a new standard for collaboration and efficiency in industrial facility design.
The plant’s design brings together an exceptional network of rolled plate ducts, stacked hoods, expansion joints, and high-capacity rotary drums—all engineered to handle demanding recycling workflows and thermal loads. By weaving in platforms, stairways, and custom support systems, the detailing team accounted for seamless access throughout the plant, tackled tricky space constraints, and modeled every transition and connection for maximum durability and ease of inspection. The result is a resilient, high-functioning facility ready to meet the pace and scale of modern aluminum recycling.
Second Place: DHL CVG AMC International Hangar
- Detailer: Arteras, Inc.
- Location: Erlanger, Kentucky
- Tonnage: 7,000
Designed to house two massive B747 cargo aircraft, the DHL CVG AMC International Hangar pushed the boundaries of clear-span engineering, with box trusses exceeding 650 feet and open hangar bays over 220 feet long. Connections for these high-load trusses required careful consideration of the camber, which was different for each grid. Other notable features of the project include stub columns, pipe braces, a 100-foot cage ladder with intermediate platforms, and a unique stair tower with stainless steel cable railings. The project was divided into almost 90 sequences for ease of fabrication, transportation, and installation.
The detailing team at Arteras maximized efficiency on the project with the use of parametric templates developed for the trusses and custom-built frames, which reduced repetition and ensured consistency across the large bays. Other automated tools within SDS2, such as the anchor rod tool, clash reports, assemblies, and miscellaneous steel modeling tools, all helped speed up the detailing process and ensure accuracy from beginning to end.
COMPLEX MISCELLANEOUS
Grand Prize: The Trade Hotel
- Detailer: Aarbee Structures, Pvt Ltd
- Location: Milwaukee, Wisconsin
- Tonnage: 25
The sculptural staircase at The Trade hotel, which features exposed rolled-plate columns painted a bold yellow, is a testament to the beauty and flexibility of steel in architectural design—and a perfect showcase of the complex miscellaneous work detailers can accomplish in SDS2.
The staircase relies on rolled-plate tree columns modeled with SDS2’s rolled plate tool for precise curvature and arc geometry. A large HSS stringer acts as the backbone of the staircase, supporting stair flights and effectively transferring loads to the supporting structure. Connections throughout the structure were artfully hidden with prefabricated collars around the embed plates and interior tube splices connecting the main column to the trunk columns.
The detailing team made extensive use of SDS2’s “fit exact” function to connect the WT treads to the central stringer, ultimately providing precise cut data and curvature for this unique fabrication.
Second Place: Lift 1A Deconstruction
- Detailer: KL&A Engineers and Builders
- Location: Aspen, Colorado
- Tonnage: 20
Aspen’s historic Lift 1A has seen generations of skiers, but preserving this icon for the future required a modern twist. Tasked with guiding its careful deconstruction as part of a larger development project, the team at KL&A built a precise 3D model from old records and used point cloud surveys and SDS2 to capture every quirky riveted connection and warped steel shape. Many towers and components—originally hand-built and now deformed from decades of mountain weather—were custom-modeled to reflect real conditions.
SDS2’s flexible tools allowed for accurate documentation of warped and non-standard geometry, producing field-ready drawings that kept crews safe and fragile parts intact. By combining digital innovation with a respect for history, this effort helped bridge Aspen’s legendary ski past with its next chapter—ensuring Lift 1A’s legacy remains accessible for generations to come.
In the world of architecture, engineering, and construction, it’s not often steel detailers who get the glory. But these award-winning projects shine a spotlight on their important work and the level of detail and dedication it takes to bring incredible steel structures to life. They prove that great steel projects don’t just meet specs—they make people stop, stare, and ask “How did they even do that?”
This year’s winners had the answers, and then some.