Rainier Square earned ASCE’s OCEA Award this week during the organization’s OPAL Awards Gala in Anaheim, California. The OCEA honor, presented annually since 1960, is billed as civil engineering’s “Academy Award.” It recognizes the project that best illustrates superior civil engineering skills and represents a significant contribution to civil engineering progress and society.
Completed in November 2020, Rainier Square rises 58 stories and 850 feet above downtown Seattle, offering 1.4-million square feet of office, apartment, and retail space. It also represents the first high-rise ever built with SpeedCore—a non-proprietary, first-of-its-kind structural system that uses modular, prefabricated core elements with assembly-line-like efficiency to erect high-rise towers faster, safer, and more economically.
“Rainier Square and the incorporation of the SpeedCore structural system represents 16 years of research and development, including contributions from research universities, colleagues, building officials, fabricators, erectors, and competitors from all aspects of our industry,” said Ron Klemencic, Chairman and CEO of MKA, Rainier Square’s structural engineer. “This is a testament to what can be done with collaboration.”
You can learn more about the award and this week’s event here.