2024 Award Winners and Nominees
Project Name
Canterbury Woods Performing Arts Center
Description
The Canterbury Woods Performing Arts Center and Community Theater was conceived by the owner as an important addition to their mission of enhancing the quality of life of the more than 400 residents, staff, and the community. According to the National Ready Mixed Concrete Association, this was the largest ICF structure ever built with primarily radius walls in NYS.
Starting with construction of the ICF walls, this building addition served as a learning ground for contractors and architects alike. Its unique shape required on-the-job instruction for the installer, and constant video documentation was used by the manufacturer to help other ICF contractors outside the WNY area. Nudura, Tremco’s ICF division, has already featured the project in many of their AIA presentations. The project has affectionately nicknamed the “Tulip” by Canterbury Woods residents and has offered them and the community with a multi-purpose performance space that can accommodate 250 patrons.
Curved ICF walls present challenges well beyond installation. Access along the perimeter of the 30’ high walls required a scaffold system as unique as the walls themselves. The initial lifts consisted of 4-5 courses of forms and could be assembled from ground level. However subsequent levels would prove to be more challenging, requiring two different types of scaffold. While both types served multiple purposes (bracing, alignment and access), lower sections were more conventional and able to be set on mud sills. Once the lower scaffolding was removed, it was replaced with a catwalk system that utilized the previously poured sections as a means of support. The system was designed to support installers and wind loads, while preventing blowouts as the lifts were poured.
The concrete material came from NRMCA member New Enterprise Stone & Lime Co., Inc.
Evidence
The innovative elliptical design proposed was unique in that it is constructed of 8” and 10” radiused Insulated Concrete Forms (ICF) walls and structural steel. The construction challenge for Lehigh was integrating the materials and unique shapes of the radiused and sloping walls into the first building of its type in New York State.
Due to the constraints of the radiused walls, the interiors and construction materials had to be monitored to integrate into the space and ensure that the roof beams fit properly. There were also innovative techniques involved in the specialized scaffolding that helped reinforce and support the ICF walls in addition to providing access and safety for tradespeople. The specialized bracing not only held the forms together while pouring the lifts of concrete, but also served as scaffolding that provided access to build it’s 30’+ high walls.
The ICF walls not only provided fantastic thermal values, but they also helped to basically eliminate noise from outside of the stage and seating area, and an audio loop was installed within the seating area slab to accommodate patrons needing hearing aids.
According to the National Ready Mixed Concrete Association, this was the largest ICF structure ever built with primarily radius walls in NYS. With the impending Buffalo winter looming over our head, we didn’t have time to field measure for the structural roof beams after the radius ICF walls were built. Beam lengths and bearing plate locations needed to be committed to early, and there was absolutely no room for error as the walls were being built. Five curved walls, each with a difference radius and a different center point, had us all revisiting lessons in geometry.
As if there weren’t enough challenges, the ICF forms themselves presented another difficult set of circumstances. While the manufacturer could perform some post-production modifications to the forms to get close to each radius, each individual form needed to be field modified to ensure that the walls were plumb as they were constructed. The edges of almost every single form needed to be shaved, making the Lego-like system more difficult to erect and brace.
The project has been nominated for and won several awards including: The AGC-NYS Jeffrey J. Zogg Build New York Award Winner; The Buffalo/WNY AIA Design Award Winner; 2024 ICF Builder Award; Featured in an NRMCA Build With Strength Case Study; Highlighted in an NRMCA Concrete Credentials Podcast.
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