B.C. gives awards for steel structures

The British Columbia Region of the Canadian Institute of Steel Construction (CISC) celebrated the 2006 Innovative Steel Structure Awards of Excellence on November 22. The event was held at the Renaissance Vancouver Harbourside Hotel. The awards are given for innovation in structural design.
The winner of the first place award in the engineering category was the Pine River Crossing. Buckland & Taylor was the structural engineer. Architect Richard Iredale who was a member of the jury and presented the awards, said the project was given the award because of its “beauty, simplicity and elegance.” The entire structure, including the foundations, was constructed of steel.
An award of merit in the engineering category went to the Texada Quarrying Shiploader. The structural engineers were Westmar Engineering Consultants Inc. Iredale said the judges were impressed by the project’s “heroic scale.” He continued: “The process involved fabricating very large steel components off site and shipping them to a remote location on Texada Island. The engineers had to consider a large variety of loading conditions, including extreme wind and earthquake loading, as well as storm and tidal effects.”
Winner in the architectural category was the Vancouver Airport “YVR West Chevron Expansion.” Stantec Inc. was the architect, and the structural engineer was Bush Bohlman & Partners. Iredale said: “The judges felt that the distinctive steel “wishbone” pilon supports and the curvilinear “boat” roof space trusses are a beautiful and fairly original design concept that deserves celebration.”
An award of merit in the architectural category went to the ‘Electronic Arts Phase 2 – Studio Building.” Structural engineer was Glotman-Simpson. The owner was: Electronic Arts Canada, the architect was Musson Cattell Mackey Partnership. “The really interesting thing about this building,” said Iredale, “especially from the point of view of architects, is that the design team was able to fully expose this interior steel structure by developing a sprinkler fire suppression system that will deluge the steel in the event of a fire. This allows the steel columns to be left exposed even though they support a floor system, which has to achieve a one-hour fire rating.”
A total of 11 submissions were received for this year’s competition, six in the Architectural Category and five for Engineering.
Besides Richard Iredale of the Iredale Group, the jury included Greg Smith of Weiler Smith Bowers Consulting Engineers, Duane Palibroda of Fast + Epp structural Engineers, David Wilkinson of Cannon Design and Arthur Buse of Boldwing Continuum Architecture.