Stephenson Engineering Ltd. is proud to announce it has received an exclusive award from the Toronto Construction Association (TCA) for its work on the landmark Queen Richmond Centre West project. Stephenson received the 2013 TCA Innovation Award at the association’s annual general meeting late last week at Woodbine Racetrack in Toronto. The award is handed out annually to recognize architects, developers, contractors and engineers who have applied creativity and out-of-the-box thinking to solve challenging construction-related problems.
“We deeply thank the Toronto Construction Association and are thrilled to accept this unique award for this project as it acknowledges our commitment to innovation as a firm,” says Zoran Tanasijecvic, a Principal at Stephenson who accepted the award on the organization’s behalf. “But it should be emphasized that the unique solution applied at Queen Richmond Centre West is really the result of true collaboration between us and our partners.”
Stephenson Engineering was recognized for devising the highly unique mega-delta frame solution to suspend an 11-storey office building above an existing heritage site. Essentially, the initial concept to support the office tower involved a series of columns that were deemed too obtrusive and bulky by the project architect, Sweeny Sterling Finlayson & Co. Following close creative collaboration and brainstorming between the two teams, the elegant mega-delta frame concept was proposed and agreed upon as the best solution.
“TCA’s Innovation Award is presented annually to a member company who thinks outside the box and devises new and innovative ways to tackle seemingly insurmountable challenges,” notes TCA President and CEO John G. Mollenhauer. “The 2013 winner, Stephenson Engineering Ltd., developed the unique ‘mega-delta fame’ on its 300,000 square foot heritage retrofit at Queen Richmond Centre West, a new approach that is innovative and cost effective and appropriately became the centrepiece of the project. Congratulations to Stephenson Engineering Ltd. for a job exceptionally well done.”
“In our field, most often the challenge structural engineers face is to make their work – columns, beams and other supports – hidden from plain sight,” explains Tanasijevic. “This is the kind of project every structural engineer dreams about: the opportunity to employ talent, creativity, and innovation to design a unique structure that will actually be exposed to public eyes.”
The Queen Richmond Centre West project was a perfect fit for this recognition, having met all of the TCA Innovation Award’s key criteria, namely: breaking with tradition and applying out-of-the-box thinking; devising clever new approaches to improve performance; creating cost-effective solutions; and demonstrating a sensitivity to schedule, quality, and environmental constraints.