Digital Building Components Wins 2024 CFSEI Award for Meridian Medical Office Building

All photos courtesy of Digital Building Components.

For the Meridian Medical Office Building in Santa Fe, New Mexico, Digital Building Components, LLC, Phoenix, Arizona, designed the building’s eyebrow using pre-finished, exterior non-load-bearing cold-formed steel (CFS) wall panels.

Digital Building Components was both the CFS specialty engineer and fabricator. Buehler Engineering was the CFS specialty engineer.

The project received the Creative Detail — Third Place honor in the 2024 CFSEI Awards presented by the Cold-Formed Steel Engineers Institute.

Meridian Medical Office Building in Santa Fe, New Mexico, with its eyebrow at the far right.

Framing the The Eyebrow

Meridian Medical Office Building is a multi-specialty medical office building and comprehensive cancer care center. The building houses up to 50 infusion bays, a lab and an advanced imaging facility with interventional radiology. The outpatient facility is planned to include primary care, general surgery, cardiology, pulmonary services, and more specialized medical departments.

The 95,000 sq. ft. structure comprises concrete over metal deck with steel-braced frame. It has 30,000 sq. ft. of pre-finished exterior cold-formed steel (CFS) non-load-bearing wall panels that encompass the structure.

The building eyebrow is about 60′ long. It cantilevers out from the exterior wall by 2′. Framing an eyebrow in the field would have involved extra field work time and would also have raised some safety concerns for the personnel working on it.

Digital Building Components decided to include the eyebrow framing within its pre-finished exterior non-load-bearing walls.

Cold-formed steel (CFS) framed panels are lifted in to place to create the building’s eyebrow.

Issue 1: Stud and Slab Connection

However, during the design coordination process, the project team found that the eyebrow and wall top track would be flush with the top of the slab. Being flush wouldn’t give any access to making a connection between the studs and the slab.

The solution? The Digital Building Components team called for using CFS angles in the place of top track. The angles would give access to install clips in the field. Once the steel studs were clipped, the team could add a flat plate on top of the angles.

Issue 2: Force Transfer

During the design phase, the eyebrow was designed and detailed to be stick-framed so the force transfer could happen directly to the studs in the wall and to the clips. This involved a reduction in moment, reducing the size of the studs and a reduction in welds on unistrut to bent plate connection.

Digital Building Components’ eyebrow panel design for the Meridian Medical Office Building.

The section view of an eyebrow panel as designed by Digital Building Components.

Mockup Panel

Once the team fabricated the mockup panel, they found the panel’s tolerance varied from the ¼” tolerance that AISI allows for non-load-bearing CFS walls.

• Fabrication had to be precise
• Stick-framing each stud of the eyebrow in the shop would be time-consuming
• Stick-framing would create issues at the connection between the eyebrow studs and wall studs

With the lessons learned from the mockup, the eyebrow panel was redesigned. Panelizing the eyebrow and the wall panels reduced the tolerance issues.

• The eyebrow stud web and flanges were welded to the track from behind and connected to the wall studs with welds at the top and bottom of the track
• Panelization of the eyebrow required increasing the gage of the studs, due to the slight increase in moment
• Panelization far outweighed other approaches due to the savings gained from consistent tolerance and time saved during framing

Meridian Medical Office Building in Santa Fe, New Mexico, with its eyebrow at the far right.

“This project’s success showcases cold-formed steel’s capabilities in complex architectural designs, emphasizing safety, efficiency and precision,” says the Digital Building Components website.

Read the complete story and obtain the complete design diagrams for Digital Building Components’ 2024 CFSEI Creative Detail Award here.

Additional Resources

• eBook: Specifying Cold-Formed Steel Framing: A Guide for Architects and Engineers
• 2023 SFIA Awards: 7 Key Learnings about Using Cold-Formed Steel (CFS)
• SFIA Reveals 7 Winners of the 2023 Industry Project Awards in Online Ceremony