Vertical House in Dallas wins national steel building design award

Chicago — A five-story residence in Dallas has earned national recognition in the 2016 Innovative Design in Engineering and Architecture with Structural Steel awards program (IDEAS²). In honor of this achievement, members of the project team will be presented with awards from the American Institute of Steel Construction (AISC) on Thursday, October 13.

Located on one of the highest sites in the city, the vertical volume of the five-story house rises 58 ft above the surrounding landscape and is rotated from the adjacent neighborhood grid to capture views of the downtown skyline.

“I want to live there!” commented Paula Pritchard, a partner, construction manager and vice president of San Francisco’s Plant Construction Co., and the general contractor juror in the competition.

The project was entered in the competition by its Austin-based design team of architect, Miro Rivera Architects, and structural engineer, Datum Engineers.

The compact footprint of the project is sectionally integrated into the site via a carved spiraling entry drive that allows for an almost subterranean experience, while the verticality of the two exterior screen walls accents the home’s slenderness and height. This curvilinear geometry emanates from the master suite and extends out into the landscape. Visitors to the house arrive at natural grade and then cross over the excavated area via an internally stabilized architecturally exposed structural steel (AESS) footbridge to the front entry.

The 10 IDEAS² winners for 2016 were chosen from nearly 100 submissions received from architectural and engineering and other project team member firms throughout the U.S. Each submission is reviewed and award winners are selected by a nationally recognized panel of design and construction industry professionals.

The IDEAS² award dates back more than 50 years with AISC. And about this year’s winning residence, Roger E. Ferch, P.E., president of AISC, said, “The entire Vertical House project team has shown how structural steel can be used to create structures that combine beauty and practicality. The result is a structure that will serve its residents extremely well, while providing an example of what can be achieved when designing and constructing projects with steel.”