Wallace Engineering, Tulsa, has been awarded the 2004 Grand Conceptor Award in the ACEC OKLAHOMA Engineering Excellence Awards competition. Wallace Engineering won the award for their panel assemblies and anchors used o the new Richard B. Fisher Performing Arts Center at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York.

The Center offers an architecturally bold and dynamic environment for innovative artistic presentation. The $62 million, 110,000 square-foot Center houses two theaters; four rehearsal studios for dance, theater, and music; and professional support facilities.

The panel assemblies were separate, unique, and complex elements that constantly changed in form and topography to meet the undulating surface of the design.

The project required the development of over 700 individual panel forms. Each panel had to interface with the primary steel structure and develop the shape of the surface. Additionally, the panels acted as the primary water and air barrier for the building surface.

One of the design criteria was also for all of the panel "fin" supports to be exposed on the underside, thus creating a tapestry of aluminum fins, cross-bracing, and rivets. The engineering had to adapt the aesthetic position of the secondary structural elements of each panel as well as how each of the over 600,000 fasteners joined the parts to the finished panels.

In several prominent areas of the building, the interior sides of the panels are the wall finish. This most notably occurs in the Lobby and the Entrance of the building. Because of this, the framing system had to be done in a controlled and regular pattern. It also had to be elegant in design and shape. This means the appearance of both the framing elements and the bracing and stability system of the panels had to be carefully planned.

The exterior design calls for very exacting angles and curves that the panels fit flush with windows intersecting walls of differing materials. The skin has the appearance of multiple panels of sheet metal "shingles", which float above or wrap around the building superstructure, creating a stunning effect.

The building surfaces and shape were defined using CATIA. This is a three-dimensional modeling program, which allows for the definition of complex shapes that would be impossible using traditional two-dimensional paper documents.

ACEC OKLAHOMA's 2004 Honor Award goes to Bucher, Willis, & Ratliff Corporation (BWR) for the Coffee Creek Channel Restoration project for the City of Edmond, OK.

In October 2000, Edmond experienced a 500-year rain event resulting in massive erosion and lateral migration of a regulatory floodplain placing public and private utilities as well as several residential homes in jeopardy.

BWR was selected to assess the situation, investigate and develop possible design options, prepare construction plans and bidding documents, provide limited construction management, provide as-builts, and prepare the Letter of Map Revision Request for FEMA including the modeling.

Design constraints included a shorter than normal time frame, limited budget, long stream reach, narrow project boundaries, sandy soils, headcutting, and a developing meander cut-off immediately upstream of the area of concern that could jeopardize any constructed project.

To add to the challenge, Edmond desired something that was aesthetically pleasing and would preserve the natural wooded habitat while requiring little or no maintenance.

Considering the project objectives and constraints, BWR used several specific design elements, including:

A horizontal alignment to move the creek away from the threatened infrastructure while also minimizing encroachment of the creek onto the adjacent primary property owner and minimizing changes to the existing meander pattern.

Grade control structures to maintain a stable channel bed and to compensate for the reduced channel length of the proposed alignment.

A uniform typical section to provide a low-flow channel capable of conveying the 2-year discharge to maximize conveyance while minimizing encroachment onto the adjacent property.

Stone riprap was utilized to secure a fixed channel at the upstream and downstream ends of the project.

A three-tiered approach for controlling horizontal alignment of the creek including, grade control structures to double as horizontal alignment control structures; native grasses and legumes for the floodplain benches and channel sideslopes between the weir control structures; and, buried riprap to provide a stable toe for the main channel bank.

ACEC OKLAHOMA congratulates Wallace Engineering and Bucher, Willis & Ratliff on these two outstanding entries. Both firms are planning to enter these projects in the national ACEC Engineering Excellence Awards competition, and we wish both firms the best of luck in the national competition.