Nation’s best design-build projects recognized

The 2018 Project of the Year reconstructed the Interstate 66/Route 15 interchange in Prince William County, Va., as a Diverging Diamond Interchange.

Design-Build Institute of America celebrates diverse projects and collaborative teams that produce projects that inspire.

In November, the Design-Build Institute of America (DBIA) announced the winners of its 2018 National Design-Build Project/Team Awards competition. The program promotes diversity in project size, sector, and geography while celebrating the innovative and collaborative teams that produce projects that inspire. This year’s winners consist of 29 projects across sectors including aviation, civic buildings, transportation, and water/wastewater.

“This year’s National Design-Build Project/Team Award winners prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that design-build is changing the way America builds and delivering impressive results in communities from coast to coast,” said Lisa Washington, CAE, DBIA executive director/CEO. “Across all sectors and project sizes, these winners demonstrate the power of collaboration in projects that are as varied as they are resilient, innovative, cost effective, and beautiful to behold.”

Project of the Year

The 2018 Project of the Year reconstructed the Interstate 66/Route 15 interchange in Prince William County, Va., to relieve congestion, enhance public safety, improve operations, bolster capacity, and accommodate forecasted traffic demand in the project area. It redesigned the interchange as a Diverging Diamond Interchange (DDI) — the first of its kind in the region — to best accommodate the projected traffic volumes as well as critical pedestrian movements in the interchange area. The design-build team used their experience and expertise to convince the owner to accept a DDI as a new, more efficient, and safer option.

Timing was a challenge. The potential presence of the long-eared bat restricted work activities for several months, requiring the design-build team to accelerate the work to get back on schedule. In addition, there were other owner-directed changes such as maintaining a 10-foot area behind a proposed sound wall, which required making it a combination retaining wall and sound wall and changing an already approved railing to a decorative railing. Also, a tomato truck crashed under the new bridge and ignited (the driver was unharmed). On investigation, the team determined that the damage from the burning tomatoes was superficial and could be remedied. The team used all the efficiencies of design-build to work through delays and issues to deliver the $38.9 million project on time.

Design-build team: Virginia Department of Transportation (client/owner); LANE Construction Corp (design-builder, general contractor, project manager); Rinker Design Associates, PC (engineer); Tavares Concrete (specialty contractor); T3 Design (specialty consultant); and Quinn Consulting Services (key subcontractor).

Chairman’s Award

The Chairman’s Award for Community Impact and Social Responsibility recognizes design-build teams that have shown extraordinary commitment to triple-bottom-line success — economic, environmental, and social — and have clearly improved the communities they’ve engaged. The 2018 Chairman’s Award, Education Facilities was the Washington State University (WSU) Elson S. Floyd Cultural Center.

Honoring late WSU President Elson Floyd, this 16,000-square-foot, $12.6 million marquee facility was designed to celebrate the cultural diversity of the campus and heritage of the land. Cultural awareness and acceptance, celebration of heritage, restoration of native landscapes, and sense of place are expressed through the form of the building. The building not only celebrates diversity, but also honors the site as the native land of the Nez Perce Tribe.

Design-build team: Washington State University (client/owner); Absher Construction Company (design-builder, project manager, general contractor); GGLO (architect); PCS Structural Solutions (engineer); Apollo Mechanical (specialty contractor); Mimar Studio (specialty consultant); and Cobra Roofing (key subcontractor).

Special Recognition Awards

The following five projects received Special Recognition Awards:

Excellence in Design – Architecture — WSU Elson S. Floyd Cultural Center (see description above).

Excellence in Design – Engineering — University of California Irvine – Transmission Electron Microscope (TEM) Facility — UC Irvine set out to build a world-class electron microscopy facility to house the most sensitive TEMs available today. A team of experts worked closely with the campus design group, instrument vendors, and key faculty to ensure the $6.5 million facility achieved unprecedented EMI and vibration specs in an occupied building near the center of campus. Design-build team: University of California Irvine, Design and Construction Services (client/owner); PCL Construction Services, Inc. (design-builder, project manager, general contractor); Carrier Johnson + Culture (architect); Critchfield Mechanical Inc. (engineer); Field Management Systems (specialty contractor); Veneklasen and Associates (specialty consultant); and Anderson Howard (key subcontractor).

Excellence in Process — The Spark at Washington State University — Clark Construction (design-builder, project manager, general contractor), ZGF Architects (architect), and WSU (client/owner) turned an academic facility’s construction into a journey that furthered the university’s desire for a state-of-the-art learning center. The team on this $43 million project overcame every challenge in its construction, including a tight budget, updated university construction standards, a restricted site, and rapidly evolving technology market conditions. During the design and validation period of the Digital Classroom project, WSU released new construction standards that revised the standards to which Clark/ZGF’s contract and design were based. The team worked with stakeholders to revise the design to meet the new construction, facilities, and operations standards. And, during the design process, a site investigation revealed an abundance of subterranean basalt bedrock. The team designed around the rock to avoid the cost of blasting it. In addition, the team designed systems to support the building structure, reducing system cost, meeting differential settlement criteria, eliminating rebar protrusions into working spaces and almost halving the deep foundations installation time. Additional design-build team members: AEI (engineer); Apollo (specialty contractor); and Vantage Technology Consulting Group (specialty consultant).

Excellence in Small Projects — Trinity County HBP Bridges Design-Build — The R N R Construction (design-builder, project manager, general contractor) and Dokken Engineering (engineer) team replaced five county-owned bridges, many in remote mountainous areas, which were identified as structurally deficient or functionally obsolete. The design-build team selected a composite precast/prefabricated design for four of the most remote structures, reducing the need to bring raw materials onsite. The replacement bridges were designed to current seismic and structural design standards. Minor approach work enhanced curvature and sight distance lines. All work on the $6.7 million project was completed in 12 months. Additional design-build team members: Trinity County Department of Transportation (client/owner); Verux (specialty contractor); and Geocon Consultants, Inc. (specialty consultant).

Excellence in Teaming — The Spark at Washington State University (see description above).

National Awards of Excellence

DBIA recognized projects in nine categories with National Awards of Excellence:

Civic Buildings — Mayne Events Center and Fire Museum, a 22,000-square-foot, $10.3 million, two-story civic facility completed for the City of Bellflower, Calif. Design-build team: City of Bellflower (client/owner); Ledcor Design-Build (USA) Inc. (design-builder, general contractor); Sillman Wright Architects (project manager, architect, key subcontractor); BWE, Inc. (engineer); and Webb Foodservice Design (specialty consultant).

Educational Facilities — University Extension Classroom Building, University of California Irvine provides an immersive education experience that coalesces UNEX’s vast array of intellectual content and digital communications with onsite learning. Design-build team: University of California Irvine (client/owner); Hathaway Dinwiddie Construction Company (design-builder, project manager, general contractor); Carrier Johnson + Culture (architect of record), LMN (architect-design); DCI Engineers (engineer); Stantec (specialty contractor); Jensen Hughes (formerly AON, specialty consultant); and Anderson & Howard (key subcontractor).

Federal/State/County/Municipal — East County Hall of Justice project in Dublin, Calif., comprises a $125 million, five-story courthouse building and a two-story county building totaling 196,000 square feet on a 22-acre site. Design-build team: Alameda County (client/owner); Hensel Phelps Construction Co. (design-builder, project manager, general contractor); and Fentress Architects (architect).

Health Care Facilities — Texas Health Recovery & Wellness Center, which provides residential treatment for clients who need professional help to resolve addictions, includes a swimming pool, gym, basketball court, fitness room, yoga studio, massage therapy, movie room, and dining area, as well as a visitation area. Design-build team: Texas Health Resources (client/owner); The Beck Group (design-builder, project manager); Armstrong-Douglass Partners, LLC (engineer); and Studio Outside (specialty consultant).

Industrial/Process/Research Facilities — University of California Irvine – Transmission Electron Microscope Facility (see description above).

Office Buildings — Riata Vista Corporate Campus in Austin, Texas, is a multi-phase, LEED-Gold assignment situated on a 38-acre site and includes six, four-story office buildings totaling nearly 1 million square feet, a café and conference center, a central utility plant, and three multi-story parking decks totaling more than 1.6 million square feet. Design-build team: Cadence McShane Construction Company (design-builder, project manager, general contractor); Studio8 Architects (architect); Cardino Haynes Whaley (engineer); and OLA (specialty consultant).

Rehabilitation/Renovation/Restoration — Main Street Bridge (Duval County) Historical Renovation Project (SR 5) Emergency Design-Build in Jacksonville, Fla., to accommodate modern traffic and retain a historic bridge’s appearance without disturbing surrounding (also) historic buildings and modern utilities. Design-build team: Florida Department of Transportation District 2 (client/owner); Wantman Group, Inc. (design-builder, project manager, engineer); Hal Jones Contractor, Inc. (general contractor); and Ellis & Associates, Inc. (specialty consultant).

Transportation — I-66/Route 15 Interchange Reconstruction Design-Build Project (see description above).

Water/Wastewater — RM Clayton WRC Headworks Improvements Design-Build provides a critical function as the first line of defense in wastewater treatment as it collects and treats flows from a combined stormwater and sanitary sewer system and solves a chronic grit-removal issue at the City of Atlanta’s largest wastewater treatment plant. Design-build team: City of Atlanta Department of Watershed Management (client/owner); Western Summit/Anatek Construction Joint Venture (design-builder); Western Summit Constructors, Inc. (project manager, general contractor); The Architecture Group (architect); Brown and Caldwell (engineer); Anatek, Inc. (specialty contractor); Long Engineering (specialty consultant); and Excel Electric Technologies (key subcontractor).

DBIA also recognized 29 projects with National Awards of Merit. View the full list of winners, including project photos and descriptions, on DBIA’s Project/Team Awards page (https://dbia.org/awards/project-team-awards/2018).

Information provided by the Design-Build Institute of America (https://dbia.org).