AWCI’s award recognizes excellence in construction quality in the face of complicated and challenging projects, and is awarded to a team of AWCI members.
Winning Project: University of Missouri – Memorial Stadium South End Zone Expansion, Columbia, Missouri
AWCI Contractor: T.J. Wies Contracting, Inc.
AWCI Team Members: USG, Negwer Materials, Inc. Foundation Building Materials, Armstrong Commercial Ceilings & Walls, Wildcat Materials Inc. – A GMS Company
Architect: Populous
General Contractor: Mortenson Sports & Entertainment Group
65,000 SF Acoustical Ceilings
22,000 SF Metal
20,000 SF Wallboard
11,200 SF Ceiling Clouds
4,000 SF Sound Panels/Baffles
3,000 SF Acoustical Decorative Metal Wall Panels
2,700 LF Trim
1,000 SF Wood Ceilings
200 LF Light Coves
T.J. Wies Contracting had only three months to complete their ceiling work on this project, so crews worked 12- to 16-hour days, seven days a week, to install more than 15 different ceiling/wall types. Challenges included a 70′ tall atrium lobby, multiple just-in-time deliveries from California, coordination with other trades to ensure perfect alignment of the adjacent finishes, and carefully working around weight lifting equipment, furniture and other finished material that was installed before their work was completed. In the end, the job was completed in time for Mizzou’s football season.
Winning Project: SSM Health – Saint Louis University Hospital, Saint Louis, Missouri
AWCI Contractor: T.J. Wies Contracting, Inc.
AWCI Team Members: Hilti, Inc., Negwer Materials, Inc., Foundation Building Materials, USG, Trim-Tex, Inc., Owens Corning
Architect: Lawrence Group
General Contractor: Alberici
2,898,916 SF Wallboard
207,876 SF Sheathing
147,656 SF Shaftwall
853,428 SF Tile Backer
6,345 Buckets of Joint Compound
151,000 LF Trims
12,000 SF Milled Drywall
72 Aerial Lifts
5 Swing Stages
T.J. Wies Contracting was given a range on means and methods they could utilize to achieve the architect’s design, enabling them to be creative outside of standard metal stud framing and drywall. They built bathroom pods off-site in a modular fashion and set each one like a fixture into rooms instead of building in place, increasing productivity and quality. Another unique aspect was the use of large quantities of milled, preformed drywall shapes for radius soffits, window wraps and bulkheads. Also, trim caps were used as a high-end window-to-drywall termination to limit sound and fire transfer at demising walls.
Winning Project: Hub on Campus, West Lafayette, Indiana
AWCI Contractor: Grayhawk, LLC
AWCI Team Members: Sto Corp., National Gypsum, ClarkDietrich, R.A. Smith, Inc., L&W Supply, Hilti, Inc., Great Lakes Prefabrication
Architect(s): Antunovich Associates
General Contractor: Shiel Sexton
80,500 SF EIFS
9 Colors
11 Floors
653 Windows
4 Textures
12 Foam Shapes
80,500 SF Vapor Barrier
487 Exhaust Vents
200 PTAC Units
There were three primary challenges with the Hub on Campus job: time, space and the sheer number of wall penetrations. Because the Hub on Campus was student housing that had been promised to arriving students, missing deadlines would be costly. Working within a small footprint with active city streets on two sides, space was limited. Each individual apartment required multiple wall penetrations, all of which were planned for and waterproofed at the fabrication plant to provide for the highest quality building envelope. Off-site panel fabrication addressed the limited lay-down area and lack of room for scaffolding.
Winning Project: The Secret Life of Pets: Off the Leash!, Universal City, California
AWCI Contractor: KHS&S Contractors
AWCI Team Members: Action Gypsum Supply, Foundation Building Materials, West Coast Firestopping, Inc., Hilti, Inc.
Architect(s): Universal Creative
General Contractor: PCL Construction
40,005 SF EIFS
40 Colors
240 Windows
13 Textures
2,000 Foam Shapes
146 Unique Foam Shapes
40,005 SF Vapor Barrier
Based on the Illumination Entertainment film, “The Secret Life of Pets: Off the Leash!,” passengers board guided vehicles for a “trackless dark ride” to experience specially lit scenes with animation, sound and special effects. The one-of-a-kind design created for Universal Studios, Hollywood consisted of a lean construction approach and intricate materials. The designs were unique and specific to details of the movie series. KHS&S’s work on the two-story attraction included interior and exterior framing, plaster, EIFS, drywall, architectural ornamentation and woodwork—right down to the exterior planter boxes. Their unique and creative themed resources department value engineered many of Universal Creative’s designs to incorporate EIFS allowing the project to meet deadlines and budgetary needs.
Winning Project: St. Michael’s Abbey, Silverado, California
AWCI Contractor: Nevell Group, Inc.
AWCI Team Members: Fallert North America, L&W Supply, Radius Track Corporation, ClarkDietrich
Architect: Hyndman & Hyndman Architecture
General Contractor: Matt Construction Co.
270,228 SF Lath
9,798 SF Veneer Plaster
9,798 SF Substrate
1,629 LF GFRG Shapes
60,282 SF Santa Barbara Detailing to Mimic Stone
6,598 SF Acoustical Plaster
6,676 SF Limestrong Finish Plaster for Murals
Nevell Group used the stucco Santa Barbara finish along with thousands of linear feet of control joint to achieve a look similar to stone. The challenge was to come up with a finish that would model similar to a stone look. NGI performed a mockup on site, which was approved, then submitted a detailed layout of the joints in fully dimensioned drawings. The lathing work was extremely time consuming to get the projection from the adjacent surfaces, line up all the joints and work with multiple radii. The layout of these joints had to be exact so that as you look down the row of columns and arches, the joints are uniform. At peak the barrel ceiling in the church was 63′ 7″, so NGI engineered a scaffolding system to provide a continuous/tiered platform for the framers, hangers, lathers and plasterers to work.
Winning Project: SoFi Stadium & Performance Venue, Inglewood, California
AWCI Contractor: Raymond – Southern California, Inc.
AWCI Team Members: CEMCO, ClarkDietrich, Hilti, Inc., Westside Building Materials (AD Gypsum Supply)
Architect: HKS Architects, Inc.
General Contractor: Turner AECOM Hunt NVL, JVC
4,778,620 LF Non-Load-Bearing Studs
497,736 LF Non-Load-Bearing Track
44,460 SF Pre-fab Soffits
17,487,600 LBS of Metal
5,995,579 Framing and Screws
SoFi Stadium & Performance Venue totals 3 million square feet and has 28′ 10″ and 31′ 10″ decks. The interior corridors had openings requiring high wind loads with plaster finishes creating very large studs with heavy gauges. Parts of the moat wall framing had continuous 68′ walls with 6″ 14 gauge, 3.5″ flange studs at 8″ on center, with large movement requirements. Particularly on the performance venue, every stud was its own individual radius with its own design, no stud was the same. The also project had tall walls without structural support and heavy design requirements, creating huge challenges. The studs on this project were massive and heavy, they had had to be pulled up with different cranes and a hoist. Extensive coordination was required with MEP systems. On the Performance Venue, each stud of the radius walls was laid out with a 3D QML system. No stud was the same.
Winning Project: Mary’s Woods at Marylhurst, Lake Oswego, Oregon
AWCI Contractor: R&H Construction
AWCI Team Members: Sto Corp., The Quikrete Companies, Western Materials Inc. (AD Gypsum Supply), Evergreen Building Products (AD Gypsum Supply), Hilti, Inc.
General Contractor: R&H Construction
200,000 SF Stucco
6 Colors
3 Floors
840 Windows
1 Texture
200,000 SF Lath
50,000 LF Trims
The Mary’s Woods Village Project is a retirement community of nine buildings, but the project originally started out with 1 2-story community center building, three 3-story residential buildings, and one 1-story retail building. Challenges included issues with issues regarding having material manufactured, shipped and delivered from more than 400 miles away in time and on an as-needed basis as the site continued to expand and lay-down storage areas dwindled. There were also weather issues associated with installing fluid applied membrane and stucco in the rainy seasons. A fluid applied membrane over the exterior sheathing under all claddings for a single source warranty, and the portland cement plaster was installed over a drainage mat, and 3.4lb self-furring expanded metal lath.
Project: UCSD Nuevo East & West Student Housing
AWCI Contractor: Nevell Group, Inc.
AWCI Team Members: J&B Materials Inc. (A GMS Company), Foundation Building Materials, Georgia-Pacific, CEMCO
This LEED Gold design-build project, which provides new housing inclusive of 2,237 beds, consists of 63 floors of student housing across seven towers, a three-story Exchange Common Building, and a one-story Market Building on a 15.8 acre site. The Nevell Group met the aggressive schedule and beat several challenges to finish their work on time in 24 months with an unmatched level of quality. At its peak NGI employed over 225 trade craftsmen among all scopes to deliver this unique and much-needed project to the client.
AWCI’s Excellence in Construction Innovation Award recognizes products, services, materials, technologies or systems that improve the means and methods utilized in the wall and ceiling industry.
National Gypsum Company
MaX12
MaX12 is the industry’s first and only 12″ o.c. optimized fastener pattern for single layer, 1-hour UL fire-rated assemblies on metal framing. MaX12 takes the industry standard fastener pattern of 8″ o.c. (perimeter and field) in a horizontal application, and 8″ o.c. (perimeter) / 12″ o.c. (field) in a vertical application and replaces them with a simpler, more efficient 12″ o.c. optimized fastener pattern throughout the entire field of the gypsum board in both horizontal and vertical applications.
The MaX12 optimized fastener pattern results in bona fide savings of both installation labor and finishing labor, as well as significantly reduce respective material costs. Through National Gypsum’s proprietary and innovative manufacturing process, National Gypsum board products are able to achieve UL listed fire-rated assemblies with fewer fasteners.
“With MaX12, our two-man crew was able to hang 105 sheets per day. To put that into perspective, this same two-man crew historically hangs approximately 70 sheets per day. We attribute this increase in productivity to MaX12, the 12" o.c. optimized fastener pattern.”
Jacob Monser, Commercial Interior
OCP Contractors, Inc.
Cleveland, OH
Raymond Inc.
Southern California
OCP Contractors, Inc.
