The Nexus of Regenerative Design

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Architectural Nexus’ aims for a second bullseye with at the Living Building Challenge pushes past sustainability and into something better—regenerative design.
By Taylor Larsen

It is rare to find people willing to put their money where their mouth is time and again.

In a world full of bland corporate-speak and empty virtue signaling, Architectural Nexus went all in on their values by tackling the Living Building Challenge (LBC) with their Salt Lake City office.

The Choice to Renovate

A rich history permeates the building that sits near the base of Parley’s Canyon. What was originally built for the US Geologic Survey in the 1950s transformed into a manufacturing and sales plant for commercial digital audio equipment in the ’70s. Next, it was a medical office building before becoming a fitness center.

But after that, the most recent two remodels have been Architectural Nexus’ very own. The initial building was going to be a challenge to renovate into something that could project the company’s values. Julie Berreth, principal in charge of the new renovation and VP of Operations for Architectural Nexus, said that version of the building wasn’t initially pleasing to the eye.

“I remember walking in [before the renovation] and just groaning. It was dark and dreary,” she said. However, the design took off as the architects began to imagine what the space could be. “As soon as sketching started to happen, [what resulted] was genius.”

Adding courtyards and a lovely two-story lobby were two components that aided the renovation in earning LEED Double Platinum. “But we were merely sustainable,” said Kenner Kingston, a driving force behind the push for LBC Certification. He and the company wanted more.

Renovating into a Living Building

The renovation originally conceived was five remodels over five years. The Architectural Nexus team laughs at what that would have been like in retrospect—the pandemic allowed them to do the renovation in one fell swoop.

The architects enlisted previous partner Jacobsen Construction to oversee this second renovation—the same contractor that helped renovate the building in 2009. Matt Nelson, Project Manager for Jacobsen Construction, knew it would be demanding to create only the second LBC Certified building out of a renovation—the Architectural Nexus’ Sacramento office was the first project in California to earn that rarified designation.

One would expect that such a challenge would figuratively require blood, sweat, and tears to construct regenerative systems and meet stringent performance requirements. Nelson and others said that nicks, bruises, and long days may have made that sentiment literal, too. It started with the extensive demo plan—the most extensive demo plan Nelson and his team had ever seen.

“We couldn’t demo, we had to disassemble,” he said. Nelson said this “disassembly” process was a recognition of what materials were already present in the building and cataloguing them. Then, teams removed parts of the building before weighing those materials, which had been meticulously color-coded, before sorting aspects into demolition, salvaging, donation, or recycling, or landfill.

Sourcing

As the construction teams catalogued and removed building materials, new ones were on their way. But sourcing “clean” materials was a large part of the challenge.

“When LEED first came out, it was a big game-changer. It was hard to get VOCs, recyclables,” and other variables lined up to meet U.S. Green Building Council standards, according to Nelson. “And this is more aggressive than any LEED project I’ve ever been a part of. […] The industry doesn’t fully know how to accommodate a building like this.”

Much like a nutrition label on food, the LBC exposes what goes into our built environment. Sourcing materials like steel, wood, and concrete were no problem for Nelson and his team. They salvaged the old gym’s wood floors, one of the materials that has made it through the last two renovations. The project team also looked to localize their construction materials, finding high-quality products closest to the building’s location to cut carbon emissions from the construction supply chain—bringing “shop local” into construction’s vernacular.

Fixture submittals and other materials that required multiple components were the real challenges in sourcing. “Think about a faucet,” Nelson said, walking through the intricacies of what is necessary—sink tub, drain pieces, countertop, et cetera. “Now, do any of those pieces have chromium VI in them? Those are rejected.”

What is restricted from this building is impressive. The LBC “Red List” excludes the use of “worst in class” materials, chemicals, and elements prevalent in the building products industry—each known to pose severe risks to human health and the greater ecosystem.

As a result, there is an unexpected bit of comedy. Unlike a new book, car, or even house, “There is no smell in the new building,” according to Nelson.

Though the obstacles are evident, sourcing according to LBC standards isn’t a disadvantage—it is another way to be intentional about the choices that make up our built environment.

Creating Place

The company looked to nature for a critical component of the design.

“Nature doesn’t make single-purpose items,” said Kingston of the fundamental concept of regenerative design. Take a plant stem for instance, “It’s structure, it’s plumbing, it’s energy transfer.”

Architectural Nexus took that analogy to create an architectural vision around essentialism, where everything in the building is here because it needs to be here—no fluff.

Kingston explained, “Essentialism says ‘What if I can have two things, but what if I can do it with one?’” Much like a flowering plant, their building aimed to be full of utility, purpose, and beauty.

The greater utility of the office’s items swerves away from being stuck on specificity or minimalism. “We meet the need, and we serve a [visual] purpose,” said Karen Cahoon, Associate Interior Designer and the lead interior designer on the project for Architectural Nexus. She pointed out the new office’s cabinets, which store objects in a clean and uniform way and do so without hardware—another nod to essentialism. So, similarly, things like whiteboards in the conference rooms double as projector screens, everything is multi-purposes.

What the Building Has Grown to Be

The pandemic provided an unexpected silver lining to today’s office. Berreth and fellow Architectural Nexus Principal Robb Harrop, lead designer on the project, each described the time working from home as one where everyone stuck to the essentials and made do with whatever they had while working remotely.

The new layout is a radical change in philosophy for the firm, even if their collaborative nature has always been present. “Everyone used to ‘live in an apartment,’ and everything in that apartment was what you owned,” said Harrop of the previous configuration. “Now we’re asking you to reside in a room but live in a house. You get to enjoy all of the amenities of the conference room and breakout rooms as opposed to living in your little cubicle.”

Today. people can “plug-and-play” in any of the different workstations around the 30,000-SF office, or just take their computers with them to the interior courtyards or the outdoor gathering spaces.

“It’s been fun to watch how employees act differently in the new building,” said Harrop. “People are in the courtyard sitting and moving around a lot more.” No more closed-off cubicles, no more people separated by seniority—just colleagues sharing space throughout the five neighborhoods in Arch Nexus SLC.

They can enjoy not just their firm's architectural labor, but the quiet majesty of the space. Cahoon chose a color scheme with pops of color to differentiate the six neighborhoods and provide visual interest for occupants. Chairs in the hoteling offices pay tribute to famous architects—Patricia Urquiola, Jens Risom, Frank Gehry—and furnish the right amount of whimsy for enjoying work.

Laboratory of Ideas

Those interviewed from Architectural Nexus described the new office functions as an experimental laboratory for building choices. The open concept with plug-and-play collaborative design was just one element. Natural ventilation was another.

“It’s taken us many decades to get us to think about [heating and cooling] this way again,” said Brian Cassil, Director of Communications for Architectural Nexus, concerning natural ventilation systems. It is refreshing to walk through the office and experience the natural breeze from the two indoor courtyards and their opened curtains of windows.

Beyond natural ventilation, experimenting with daylight simulation was time well spent. Solatubes and light wells in the interior courtyards provide bounteous sunlight throughout the office and help conserve the company’s electricity bill.

The firm’s desire to be the testing grounds for new ideas also turned the office into a bit of a greenhouse—just without the swampy humidity. Data from their Sacramento office encouraged the Arch Nexus team to insert lots of lush greenery. “The ferns have been crazy from day one,” said Cassil of the plant growth. “They just go gangbusters.”

There are seemingly endless examples that move the regenerative building conversation forward. “People can come into our building and see [these regenerative elements of a building]—they don’t have to sit in a conference room and hear us talk about it and imagine,” said Harrop. “They can experience it.”

Regenerative Systems

And there is a lot to sell to clients. Harrop explained the regenerative components inside the building include the gray water system, living walls, and Solatubes. Exterior courtyards, water capturing cisterns, and PV array make up the outdoor systems.

The solar panels atop the steel parking structures generate just over 115% of the building’s electricity needs and power some electric vehicles. It’s helpful in a multitude of ways and a special treat for Cassil and others who use the EV chargers. He will never have to go to the gas station again, “except maybe for some taquitos,” Cassil laughed.

Nelson was quick to praise the subcontractors, who elevated their intentionality on such a complex project. That creativity was especially evident in one of the more dreary parts of a building—wastewater collection. Vacuum toilets waste very little water, using the gray water system instead of potable water. That water goes through quite a process, traveling through UV lights, three filter tanks of sand and gravel, and another sump before it goes to flush toilets and water the living walls and outdoor landscaping.

Architectural Nexus’ Megan Recher, Regenerative Design Specialist with Architectural Nexus, works closely to make sure systems are running as designed. Whether it is donning waders to check the gray water system or checking energy usage, she’s an integral part in meeting LBC standards to make sure that this “home” can continue to support its residents.

Resiliency

The firm’s renovated headquarters is advancing the concept of resiliency, a value gaining steam as lakes dry out around the state and temperatures oscillate between extremes.

The battery storage and solar array alone can keep the essential systems running for a week without external power. To Kingston, it’s an obvious solution beyond the self-described “hippie” concepts.

“There is a business reason for these decisions,” he said. That reason is the potential loss of thousands of dollars every hour the systems aren’t up and running to meet client demands. Recher is heavily involved in making sure electrical systems and usage are closely monitored. Various controls shut power completely off for the office computers after the last employee is out of the office for the night—no standby power usage here.

“The difficulty isn’t in concepts or technology,” according to Cassil. These systems aren’t novel, but rarely are so many used together at once. “The difficulty is getting everything to work in harmony.”

These are all concepts and systems that are readily available and whose price is very similar to standard systems—the issue is change. Recher mentioned that the ceiling for clients is imaginary. But going above and beyond today’s standards requires curiosity and intentionality that isn’t always prioritized in the breakneck scheduling that has become the A/E/C norm.

The intentionality here feels at once unique and achievable, .

It goes back to that multi-purpose nature mentioned earlier. This building serves not just as an office but as a new way forward. A regenerative built environment is possible.

“All these things we are doing … They are not novel. They are not hard. They are not expensive,” said Kingston. “But they are critical.”

ARCH NEXUS SLC

Owner: Architectural Nexus
Architect: Architectural Nexus
General Contractor: Jacobsen Construction
Civil Engineer: Meridian Engineering
Electrical Engineer: BNA Consulting
Mechanical Engineer: Capital Engineering Consultants
Structural Engineer: ARW Engineers
Interior Design & Furniture: Architectural Nexus
Plumbing Subcontractor: Budd Rich Plumbing Inc.
HVAC Subcontractor: Rocky Mountain Mechanical
Electrical Subcontractor: Arco Electric
Concrete: Jacobsen Construction
Steel Fabrication & Erection: Clegg Steel
Glass/Curtain Wall: Mollerup Glass & Alder Sales
Masonry Subcontractor: RJ Masonry
Drywall/Acoustics: HD Acoustics
Painting: Fisher Painting
Tile/Stone: JRC Tile & Stone Inc
Other Specialty Subcontractors: Jacobsen Flooring Services, Layton Roofing, Guaranteed Waterproofing & Construction, DJ Johnson, A-Core Concrete Specialists

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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.