AISC presented members of the project team of the Emerson College Los Angeles Center with the 2016 IDEAS2 Award for excellence in steel-frame building design during ceremonies last week at the building. In recognition of its particular accomplishments in structural engineering, the project has been selected to receive the Presidential Award of Excellence in Engineering, the only project in the competition to be so honored.
Located on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood, Calif., the $85 million building, which serves as the West Coast home of Boston-based Emerson College, is a small-scale university campus containing below-grade parking, classrooms, performance space, offices and student housing. The facility adds a dynamic new focal point to the neighborhood while serving as a conduit for Emerson students to intern in the nearby entertainment industry during work/study semester in Los Angeles. The building’s complicated forms and interconnecting spaces required creative structural problem solving to maintain efficiency of material and constructability while upholding the architect’s vision.
Roger E. Ferch, P.E., president of AISC, said, “The entire Emerson College Los Angeles Center project team has shown how structural steel can be used to create structures that combine beauty and structural integrity. The result is a structure that will serve its users extremely well, while providing an example of what can be achieved when designing and constructing projects with steel.”
For more about the project and all of this year’s IDEAS2 award winners, see the article 2016 IDEAS2 Awards from our May issue. Entries for the 2017 competition are being accepted through August 26, 2016, at www.aisc.org/ideas2.
Photo at right (L-R): Roger E. Ferch, P.E., president of AISC, with John A. “Trailer” Martin, Jr., S.E., president of John A. Martin & Associates, Los Angeles, the engineering firm for the project. (Photo: Lorena Arce, AISC)