Hearth and Home

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Hearth and Home

Having built residences of all types across the state, CW Group's corporate headquarters showcases the firm’s penchant for high design and construction.
By Taylor Larsen

Hop off the Parrish Lane exit into Centerville, and a few turns later sits theHIVE, CW Group’s recently completed mixed-use, multi-family and single-family project. But close by is another testament to their work to design, develop, and build the best spaces in Utah—their gorgeous concrete and glass office headquarters.

“We’ve been heavy into Davis County,” said Darlene Carter, CEO of CW Group. Their work creating townhomes, apartments, and single-family homes in Layton, Farmington, Kaysville, North Salt Lake, and directly east of their new office in Centerville has made their foray into designing and building their office more personal.

Not only is it the epicenter of what they are developing, Centerville has been home since the company was founded in 2016.

The three-story, 18,000-SF office culminates years of planning and growth for the vertically integrated developer via two of their five business lines: CW Urban (developer and builder) and CW Design (architect and interior design firm).

Vision Takes Shape

“This office is a vision from Colin,” Carter said as conversation rolled forward at her office table, the interview taking on the feel of a Sunday dinner with family.

The luxurious office came from many bits of inspiration, none more critical than a CW Group executive trip to San Diego in 2017 to find additional ideas for their multi-family work. The team was deeply inspired by projects from Jonathan Segal, the renowned architect best known for his intricate and contemporary designs that boast impressive concrete and glass finishes.

Three years later, it was time to head back on a different kind of trip. Once the company was ready to move across I-15 to a new headquarters, Bryce Willardson, VP of Commercial Operations, said the team grabbed the concrete subcontractor, architect, and superintendent for another trip to the San Diego sunshine.

They knew they wanted to jump on their glass and concrete material choices. The remaining question was, “How high?”

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CW Group opted for a darker design palette, with wood grains and cabinetry giving the space a comfortable warmth. The daylight bathing all three floors accentuates the cozy feel of the office, especially the organic wood features, metal accents, and glass transparency that looks out all around. (all photos by Malissa Mabey Photography)

Plans Coalesce

“One of the biggest things was planning for growth,” said Willardson of the challenges designing a space befitting the firm. “From start to finish, we were in completely different macroeconomic conditions.”

With the company bursting at the seams in their old office as the design of the new space moved forward before the pandemic, the initial question was, “How do we create space for everyone?” he continued. Then, when the single-family residential housing market shifted in 2022, the question switched to, “Have we designed for too much space?”

“It’s like designing a custom home,” he said. “It puts strain on whoever designs it.”

Designing and building that home amidst the maelstroms of supply chain issues, inflation, supply shortages, and residential housing swings certainly didn’t help.

Carter agreed about the mental and emotional burden of creating an office befitting the entire team. “Expectations were off the charts,” she said. Throughout the two-and-a-half-year design and construction process, Carter said one priority never left their minds: “We had to get it right.”

Connection

As a work-from-office company and builders of neighborhoods—in every sense of the word—company goals centered around creating the same type of unity built into their residential work. Carter said the trademark “We Build Community” started in-house.

“We wanted it to feel like a ‘hive,’” said Carter. “A place when industry, hard work, and community meet.”

But collaboration didn’t default to the traditional, bright and white, open office concepts. Instead, CW Group embraced more individual offices to give many in the firm more privacy, more ownership of their space, and a higher level of productivity in a space tailor-made to how the company works.

The third floor holds the bulk of CW Group’s visible work. Commercial and residential construction teams work here, with drop-in desks for field team members. The architecture team is close by, with a more open, collaborative feel to their space—especially with the 10-ft, hive-inspired chandelier hanging above the steel stairway.

Marketing, sales, and materials purchasing teams round out the third floor, with the walnut wood cabinetry and marble throughout the space adding a level of sophistication and opulence befitting CW Group’s desire for the highest quality materials and finishes in every project they build.

“As a creative, this space inspires me every day,” said Abbie Wardle, VP of Marketing for CW Urban. “I want to be here.”

Concrete Standards

Traveling down the beautiful metal and wood stairway to the second floor displays the company’s land, entitlement, and acquisition teams. Executive offices for Carter and Wright sit on this floor, too, with Willardson recognizing the importance of having executives ready and available—and centralized.

“I don’t have to climb the floors on the way up to the ivory tower,” he said of executive availability. Everyone interviewed said those doors are nearly always open and seats available around the kitchen table in each office.

Visible concrete ceilings, walls, and polished concrete floors are as durable as they are majestic—a material nod to the firm’s work. While utilizing concrete for its staying power, the unforgiving nature of the material required precise design and well-executed construction.

Willardson said everything had to be right the first time. “You only get one shot at things. […] That board form concrete look was something we really wanted […] and getting it right was essential.”

He continued by saying that the enduring nature of the building was a testament to Green Construction and their partnership on the project. “They made it easy on us.”

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Interior Splendor

The welcome at the ground floor comes with marble, concrete, glass, steel, and brass accents of the grand lobby. Asset management and underwriting just behind the desk form a solid base for the entire firm. The dual conference rooms donned “The Legacy” and “The Arena,” featuring custom fabricated marble tabletops, nod to past heroes while looking out the windows to the future for the company.

The team opted for a darker, more residential palette, with natural wood grains and cabinetry giving it a comfortable warmth. The daylight bathing all three floors accentuates the cozy feel of the office, especially the organic elements of walnuts wood features, metal accents, and glass transparency that looks out all around. It creates a powerful combination with the quiet reverence in the universal and powerful nature of the concrete present here.

“Sometimes you do things in your home that you pay for regardless,” Carter said. The economics of it may not make the most sense. “But it’s what is going to make you feel energy, safety, inspiration, and love. And this office is a representation of that.”

The offices, collaborative spaces, and even bathrooms are swanky, the latter with the feel of a high-end hotel.

“We took the time to bring in things that would be in a residential space or create commercial-quality furniture that withstands the test of time,” said Carter of the soft materials of some furniture and the regal leather of others.

These choices have changed how team members interact on an interpersonal level, too. Collaborative gathering spaces pepper all three building floors, with “The Pantry” being the cream of the crop as a first-floor break room and kitchen.

“It’s feels like a school cafeteria in all the good ways,” said Wardle. Instead of people huddling over their desks for lunch, she said, the mid-day hour signals the time to enjoy a good meal and some colleague camaraderie, especially at the bi-weekly company lunches.

Just a few months ago, March Madness provided a fun space to catch some basketball games and excitement for company bracket challenges. The black and gold bee-themed wallpaper is both a tribute to the Beehive State and the industrious, collaborative nature of CW Group.

A Fitting View

Even as far back as when they were looking at the acreage to build their office and the nearby residences, Carter said they worked with numerous non-profits and other partners to ensure that the previous site’s existing residents would have a safe landing spot before development moved forward.

“We go into these spaces and ultimately, we are creating a new community,” she said. But a crucial aspect of their mission as developers was to honor the existing fabric of the neighborhood: what goes in still fits in seamlessly, responds to market needs, and improves everything around it.

As the tour moved back to the second-floor stairway, Carter said this view, looking east, made it all worthwhile.

“You look out into the most innovative townhomes and single-family homes,” Carter said of the stairway vantage point.

Seeing the eastward panorama, it is not corporate fluff. CW Group’s vision is captured in that single view, inspiring team members in how the company lives and breathes its creeds and mottos. With the Wasatch Mountains as the backdrop to theHIVE, the scene is a painting of their work to build community, displayed in the medium of their new office.

CW Group Office

610 N 800 W, Centerville, UT

Project Team

Owner: CW Group

Developer: CW Urban

Design Team

Architect: CW Design

Civil: PEPG

Electrical: Spectrum Engineers

Mechanical: Spectrum Engineers

Structural: BHB Structural

Geotech: CMT Technical Services

Interior Design & Furniture: CW Design

Construction Team

General Contractor: CW Urban

Plumbing: Progressive Plumbing

HVAC: Salmon HVAC

Electrical: Wilkinson Electric

Concrete: Green Construction Inc. (GCI)

Steel Fabrication: Right Way Steel

Steel Erection: SPR Steel Erectors

Glass/Curtain Wall: Linford Contract Glazing (LCG)

Drywall/Acoustics: Tolman Construction

Painting: Stauffer Enterprises

Tile/Stone: Apollo Stone

Carpentry: Contempo

Flooring: Floor Styles

Roofing: D7 Roofing

Waterproofing: D7 Roofing

Excavation: Six Star Management

Landscaping: Boulder Landscaping

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Kimley-Horn SLC Office Marks 10 Years

By By Brad Fullmer • 04 Oct, 2024

It's been a decade since Kimley-Horn, one of the nation’s top engineering and design consultancy firms, launched an office in Salt Lake, and by all accounts, the Wasatch Front market has been a boon to the civil engineering firm, with local leaders feeling highly optimistic about its future success and growth in the Beehive State. The Salt Lake office was opened by Zach Johnson in 2014, who previously spent time in three other Kimley-Horn offices including Sacramento, Orange County, and Denver, with three total people comprising the initial staff. The firm's Denver office was providing consulting services for the Utah Department of Transportation and put together a market analysis regarding expanding into its neighbor to the west. "The market analysis we put together showed we should have had an office in Utah 10 years previously [2004], so we decided to plant a flag and open an office," said Johnson, who leads the office along with seasoned Salt Lake office practice leaders Chris Bick, Leslie Morton, and Nicole Williams. Like any new start-up endeavor, it was rough sledding initially, but strong regional support and the sheer tenacity of boots-on-the-ground marketing started paying off, with explosive growth happening along the way. "I would describe the first few years as lean," said Johnson. "We had to be creative, we had to be scrappy to capture work and rely on our partners across the country, folks who had clients in Utah and rely on those relationships. Those first two to three years were about relationship building and knocking on doors that didn't always open. It was a lot of fun."

A Future Paved with Intentionality

By Taylor Larsen • 03 Oct, 2024

Nearly 90 minutes into a conversation with Dave Edwards and Bruce Fallon, the two remembered a story about the values of WPA Architecture from years before. Fallon was in talks with the principals at the firm to define values for the rest of the company. Longtime ownership, with decades of experience founding and building up their own firm, weren’t against the idea, but the idea of formalizing it all seemed inconsequential. Fallon had been a Principal with the firm for ten years and finally asked longtime Principal Alan Poulson (who retired in December 2023), ‘What motivates you?’ to which [Poulson] answered, ‘Providing for my family.’ The thought has stuck with Fallon and Edwards ever since. “It drove [Poulson] in everything he did,” Fallon said. “He was excellent in everything he did so he could provide for his family.” Now that the two lead WPA as Principals, they have looked to embrace excellence through intentionality—in purpose, relationships, and work ethic—that will lead the firm to new heights.

Art of the Grill

By Taylor Larsen • 01 Sep, 2024

Touring the brand name in grilling with Marbe Agee feels fitting, especially as she discussed the design concepts embodied throughout Traeger Grills’ new headquarters. Agee, a southerner and Principal at Method Studio, has helped to build Utah’s office scene by envisioning awe-inspiring commercial spaces for clients, especially here with the firm’s most recently finished work—modernizing a cluster of old buildings and turning them into a clean, 21st-century workplace. “We worked to make sure to not have brik-a-brak or gobbledy gook,” she said of the design, sprinkling our conversation with southern seasonings I haven’t heard used since my dad said “daggum” when referring to the sweltering Oklahoma heat. Committing to those design standards with plenty of existing “gobbledy gook” would be a challenge from concept to delivery. But Traeger Grills, their design team led by Method Studio, and their construction team led by Layton Construction's Interior Construction Specialists, joined forces to perfectly balance the ingredients on site with modern expertise to create a space to savor. Marinade Touring with David Knorr feels fitting, too. The Layton ICS Project Manager has a deep, gentle voice that combines with his beard and flannel shirt to make Knorr a pitmaster personified. He said he does use his Traeger grill often, but his domain is less barbecue, more building. Knorr, Agee, and their teammates at Layton ICS and Method Studio have shared a meal or two with the Traeger team in their ten-plus-year relationship working across multiple projects. Agee and Knorr mentioned watching Traeger go from working on MityLite tables in a Springville warehouse over a decade ago to building the office for the brand name in outdoor cooking with an award-winning project in the Wilmington Flats building in Sugar House. When the time came to envision a “Traeger 2.0” in a 2019 conversation with the Traeger Grills top brass, the designers and builders were ready to leap into action, with construction beginning in September 2021. Agee and the Method Studio Workplace team designed with certain goals in mind: fostering human connection and a place of belonging with a compelling set of work environments that draw you to the space. But, she said, this design needed to stay true to Traeger Grills and how they work while remaining unencumbered by current workplace trends. “Our current philosophy is to create a workplace that is not homeful, or heaven forbid the overused ‘resimercial’ word, but rather something that is better than what employees have at home,” Agee said. What she and her team are trying to capture in their office design is a culture-specific environment “where employees want to be.”

Marmalade Plaza Bearing Fruit

By Taylor Larsen • 01 Sep, 2024

Tucked just beyond the hustle and bustle of 300 West in Salt Lake City is something sweet: Marmalade Plaza—the collaborative work between third-generation Utah family business Cal Wadsworth Construction and landscape architects and designers at Salt Lake-based LOCI. Amidst the lovely built features and vegetation installed around the half-acre site, what catches the eye is the giant bronze apricot statue on the project's westernmost edge. Statue artist Day Christensen, with his last name so fitting for the Beehive State, delved into the Marmalade District’s rich past as the inspiration for his work on “Apricot,” saying the area’s steep streets were named after quince, apricot, and almond fruits as residents used those fruits to make and sell marmalade. The sculpture, he said, serves as a constant reminder of the neighborhood's origins and the ingenuity of its pioneers. That ingenuity in design and execution was a theme as the project team delivered a public space befitting Salt Lake’s historic Marmalade District. The plaza design took off in 2014 with LOCI Principal and founder Michael Budge and his newly minted firm working on their first project. Instead of funding delays that pushed construction back, Marmalade Plaza would need to wait for future development to finish before starting. The landscape architect said the half-acre parcel was always set up as a public space between existing developments at that time (Marmalade Library; Capitol Villa Apartments) and future projects (Harvest Apartments; Grove at Marmalade townhomes). Public involvement quickly settled on a design priority that remains top of mind for many Utah residents—water. “From day one, we wanted a water feature,” said Budge. The plaza would honor the body of water that existed on site previously, one the Army Corps of Engineers had to ensure wasn’t a wetland. The LOCI team designed an abstract wetland in its place, complete with water boxes for the future rushes to be installed. Winning the construction bid was Cal Wadsworth Construction’s entry point to test their collective chops. “We thought that all of the concrete work was exciting,” Jordan Wadsworth said. As Director of Operations for Cal Wadsworth Construction, the design that called for board-formed precast cubes, cast-in-place bridges and steps, plus sandblasted artistic flair would push him and his team to innovative heights. Turning the site from a post-development mud pit into an urban oasis was challenging on such a tight site. One small entrance on the southern edge for concrete trucks and construction teams required high-level sequencing to get the right people on-site at the right time. Connection and coordination were always at the forefront, especially with how the project integrates with the nearby buildings. That LOCI was hired by Harvest Apartments, adjacent to the to the north and west, to design their landscaping and more was a huge win, ultimately helped to site the complex’s three apartment buildings and combine features where landscaping seen in project dovetails perfectly in the other, flowing together like the plaza’s 100-ft-long water feature. “It’s not an easy design and hats off to the contractors who built it,” said Budge. Not easy is an understatement, especially with the ipe (pronounced E-pay) Brazilian hardwood decking. Dense, heavy, durable, and challenging meant a few hundred drill bits were sacrificed at the altar of construction. But the team persevered, developing a system to make cuts so clean that the hardwood boards appear pre-engineered. “All of it was hand done,” Wadsworth said of the work with the decking. Precision and care were standout features of the Cal Wadsworth Construction team as they self-performed cast-in-place concrete benches with the gentlest curves, three concrete bridges, as well as concrete steps across the northern end of the water feature—all surrounded by two lines of paperbark maple trees. “It’s refined,” said Budge. “It’s less so someone’s backyard, but [more] an urban plaza you’d find in a major city.” The slight bend in the form of the benches, water feature, and around 1,600 SF of decking are not only a circulation effort moving people from southwest to north or vice versa, but a testament to the work from the Cal Wadsworth team to artfully construct such complicated forms. The design also called for precast concrete cubes ranging in height between 9” - 3’9” in height. Built by Brigham City-based Mountain West Precast, each of the cubes was picked and placed close to the final location before a forklift positioned each of them on their respective bolts before epoxying them in place. Wadsworth said it came together “like a Tetris puzzle.” The project team dug deep into their problem-solving bag after the fire marshal refused to allow the grass turf of LOCI’s original design. The landscape architects pivoted to replacing the turf with two 25-foot-plus sycamore trees to help cool and shade the plaza’s 5,000 SF of concrete hardscape.

Movin' on UP!

By Doug Fox • 01 Sep, 2024

There’s a new jewel in the crown of Silicon Slopes architecture: the visually stunning Traverse Heights Office Building. The six-story structure, housing 57,000 square feet of Class A professional office space and featuring a floor-to-ceiling curtain wall glass facade, sits like a queen on a bluff overlooking the I-15 corridor in Lehi and the expanse of Utah Valley. If you’re traveling through that section of north Utah County, you can’t miss it on the east side of I-15. “It is impossible to exit the freeway and not see this building standing large, perched over Silicon Slopes,” said Jared Francom, Project Director for Okland Construction. “It stands apart by location, approach and visibility.” The building, owned by Woodley Real Estate, came with a price tag of around $25 million. In addition to the ownership group, tenants include Bank of America, Fidelity Investments, Solidarity Capital, Paramount and family offices for both Curt Doman and Todd Pederson, among others. “We have had way more demand than space,” said Eric Woodley, owner/developer. “It certainly stands out and is a unique offering. The offset design really sets it apart from the rest [of the buildings in Silicon Slopes].” According to David Anderson, Design Principal for Babcock Design, the core concept of the building differed significantly from the typical five- and six-story workplace projects his firm has created along the Silicon Slopes stretch of I-15. “On the heels of several projects designed around 100,000-plus-square-feet tech-sector tenants that prioritized efficient floor plates and large-scale shared amenities, this project targeted smaller, high-end user groups with an interest in a refined, iconic space,” Anderson said. “As a result, efforts were made to sculpt a unique exterior form with shifting floor plates cantilevering high above the ground plane, which provided extensive usable outdoor space.” COVID Conundrums The journey from land acquisition in 2020 to certificate of occupancy in 2023 turned out to be no easy feat. Mentally, Wasatch Front residents may be a few years removed from the peak period of the COVID-19 pandemic but its architectural impact is still being felt and the Traverse Heights Office Building is a prime example. The project started during the mid- to latter stages of the pandemic in 2021 and was designed amid the challenging fallout of material shortages throughout the building industry. Year-long lead times and cost escalation on structural steel products at the time tilted the design decision toward a post-tensioned concrete structure, Anderson said. But that strategic switch spawned its own set of COVID-created conundrums. “By the time construction ensued, of course, there were concrete shortages throughout the state due to shutdowns of several cement production plants,” Anderson said. “Okland Construction worked miracles to acquire concrete during the shortage and significantly minimized delays in the construction schedule.” Choosing concrete both for the look and the difficulty of procuring steel, Woodley noted that the concrete shortage hit during the mat-footing pour — basically the most inopportune time possible. “It was a nightmare to work through, but we had a great construction team to help us navigate it,” he said. On a positive note, the decision to use post-tensioned concrete affected both the overall form — achieving some dramatic cantilevers in the office space – as well as the feel of the interiors, said Anderson. “Exposed architectural concrete sheer walls and solid concrete slabs created a crisp, smooth and dramatic interior space with exceptionally high ceilings,” he said.

ASLA Pulls Up a Chair

By Taylor Larsen • 01 Sep, 2024

It’s hard to keep track of all the decisions made about the built environment happening in Utah. A new commercial design here, permitting there, and the beginning and end of so much master planning. It’s great for the A/E/C community, certainly, but for Bryce Ward and the other board members at the ASLA Utah Chapter, landscape architecture deserves a seat at the table where those decisions are made. Bringing in their unique point of view, ASLA Utah is aiming to break through the misunderstanding in their field to plan, design, and steward environments across Utah for residents and visitors to thrive. There’s the mission, and there’s the practice. Ward explained that landscape architects are expert generalists, meaning he and his fellow professionals are trained to think beyond the site boundaries. “Buildings are part of an elaborate natural and development fabric,” Ward, recently elected Trustee for the ASLA, said. “Landscape architects think through the impacts development has on the built and natural environments.” After all, their work is much more than shrubs, benches, and a walking path. The plan is in motion to build toward a cohesive whole, where every facet of the built environment is considered—with landscape architecture joining the party and improving projects across the state. For Lars Erickson, ASLA Utah President-Elect, the matter is one of dollars and cents in a straightforward equation: clients that value and pay for good design get greater value in their projects. “Even the simplest of landscape projects can create greater value for our environment with a little more effort,” Erickson said.

Big Plans on Campus

By B. Garn • 01 Sep, 2024

Students at Utah’s higher education campuses this fall likely found themselves navigating around construction fencing or finding once familiar pathways to class temporarily blocked as concrete trucks rumbled by and tower cranes cast shadows across campus. From the new buildings for the University of Utah’s School of Medicine that are reshaping the upper campus of the state’s flagship university to plans for a major campus expansion at Utah Tech University (UTU) in St. George, a surge of projects planned and funded several years ago are now taking shape on university campuses from Logan to St. George.

Precast Market Ready to Take Off in Utah

By Taylor Larsen • 01 Sep, 2024

It’s not rocket science. According to Kevin Martin, Geneva Pipe & Precast’s General Manager for the Orem office, precast concrete is a simple, albeit different, solution for a construction problem. “We’re still building a metal cage and building a mold and putting concrete around it,” he said. Simple, sure, but effective. With a huge concrete market to capture, expanding infrastructure with new and growing communities, and a broken labor market showing no signs of repair, the trajectory for precast is upward and onward as the new year approaches. No Rest for Precast Each of those interviewed spoke to how there is not just an insatiable demand for precast in Utah, but that they regularly field calls from out of state to supply jobs across the West. As a byproduct, one trend that may be gone forever is the winter slowdown, especially as development ticks up across the state. Said Martin, “We used to use the winter months to build up inventory, but the new way of doing things is putting pressure on us to keep production high year-round.” Demand for neighborhood infrastructure products is here to stay, especially for growing cities around the state. Developments are popping up across Utah County in Lehi, Saratoga Springs, and Eagle Mountain, as well as an exploding demand from the southward development in places like Payson, Santaquin, and even Benjamin, nestled snugly just south of Spanish Fork. Precast, those interviewed said, is ready to meet it with pipe, box culvert, manholes, and more. With expanding development combined with the growing capabilities of precast concrete, "slowdown" might not enter the precast vernacular again. Lee Wegner, Regional Sales Manager for Contech Engineered Solutions, noted the possibilities that opened up with the Latter-day Saint temples in the 2010s changed the game on precast concrete in Utah. High-level detail and molds brought awards and new possibilities, with rope-like features and scalloped corners doing the best impression of skilled masonry work. “Almost every piece was unique,” said Wegner of their work on the Payson Temple. While unique is not the word precasters want to hear in such a standardized process, the pride of seeing what their work accomplished in the final build helped to reimagine what was possible in precast shops. “We’re pushing the envelope a lot more and are much more adaptable to the needs of the market.”

Innovative Infrastructure

By Milt Harrison • 01 Aug, 2024

Crews from Whitaker construction installed a massive 63-inch diameter HDPE pipe for North Davis Sewer District that allows treated and cleaned wastewater to flow to the Great Salt Lake, putting water back into the ecosystem while combatting dropping water levels. (photos courtesy Whitaker Construction)

Brilliantly Executed Spaces and Thinking

By LADD MARSHALL • 01 Aug, 2024

The Intermountain Chapter of the International Interior Design Association (IIDA) held its annual BEST Awards competition on May 16 at The Natural History Museum of Utah, with the UVU Sorensen Student Center capturing the "BEST of the BEST" and "BEST Play" categories. BEST stands for Brilliantly Executed Spaces & Thinking, and the IIDA awards are among the most prestigious given to interior design professionals in both residential and commercial markets. An array of unique projects were submitted, projects that go beyond painting a pretty picture while truly encompassing great design in function, form, and style. IIDA Intermountain recognizes that successful interior design requires a collaboration of many disciplines including consultant teams, project managers, vendors, contractors, and more. These awards are a celebration of that collaboration and of dynamic overall design happening throughout the Intermountain region.