Pinnacle Awards Point to Stone’s Excellence
Commercial Exterior – Award of Excellence
Irvine Spectrum Lot 111
Irvine, Calif.
Client/Owner: The Irvine Company
Architect: LPA Architects
General Contractor: McCarthy Construction
Stone Fabricator/Supplier: Corsi & Nicolai
Stone: Roman Classico travertine, Turkish Brown travertine
In 2008, 225,000 ft² of travertine was installed on the exterior of two identical 15-story towers in the Irvine Spectrum Center. Each tower is clad with more than 14,900 pieces of unfilled, honed Roman Classico travertine, and more than 700 pieces of Turkish Brown travertine used as banding at the third-, 13th-, and 15th-floor reveals. Entrance canopies were handset, while the towers utilize 1,860 Cygnus panels per building. The project schedule only allowed six months from job award to the first shipment of fabricated stone arriving at the installer’s panel fabrication facility.
The Cygnus system allowed the project schedule to be achieved and increased the quality of the façade; the lightweight system is particularly beneficial in high seismic zones, such as California, since earthquake loads on the structure are greatly reduced.
Commercial Exterior – Award of Excellence
LDS Vancouver Temple
Langley, British Columbia
Stone Fabricator: Bestview International, Wood Dale, Ill. (MIA honoree)
Client/Owner: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints
Architects: Abbarch Architecture, GSBS Architects
General Contractor: Dominion Fairmile
Stone Supplier: Sabadini Ltda.
Stone: Branco Siena granite
The temple is clad with close to 30,000 ft² of pristine Branco Siena granite and features intricate architectural detailing at the corners, windows, and doors. Designed as a gravity-stacked masonry project, the average stone thickness is a hefty 75mm. The window surrounds for each of the 18 full-height windows feature a multi-level stepped pattern.
Additionally, the pilaster columns of the building are accented by a design engraved into the cubic stones. The majority of the exterior stone is river-washed, while the stones on the corners and window surrounds are honed. A total of 4,450 individual pieces were installed on the building in approximately nine months.