R.A. Smith Wins CFSEI Design Excellence Award for Office Building at Ovation

Project profile provided courtesy of CFSEI. All photos courtesy of R.A. Smith, Inc.

The office building at the 25-acre mixed-use Ovation campus in Newport, Kentucky, is a five-story, 100,000-square-foot structure nestled along the Ohio River and Licking River convergence. The project is the 2023 winner of the CFSEI Design Excellence Award, first place in the commercial category, presented by the Cold-Formed Steel Engineers Institute.

R.A. Smith, Inc. provided the shop drawings, engineering and panelized drawings and details to Grayhawk, LLC., which produced the panels in their shop. Both firms are members of the Steel Framing Industry Association (SFIA).

Office Building at Ovation features exterior walls with bypassing, non-load bearing prefabricated cold-formed steel (CFS) panel frames supporting pre-finished, prefabricated panels. 

Office Building at Ovation features prefabricated cold-formed steel (CFS) panel frames designed by R.A. Smith and produced by Grayhawk, both SFIA members.

The form of the building follows the curves of the road and rivers, overlooks the Cincinnati skyline and offers expansive views. The office building is one piece of the larger mixed-use campus, which will offer housing, retail, restaurants and entertainment.

Panelization Cut Time to Install Building Envelope

The main structure of the Office Building at Ovation is five stories of post and beam with composite slab floors that sit on two levels of a parking structure. The form of the building is a modified box that curves along the north elevation with continuous ribbon windows that maximize views to the outside. 

The exterior walls are primarily bypassing, non-load bearing prefabricated CFS panel frames supporting pre-finished, prefabricated StoLite™ panels from Sto Corp.

R.A. Smith shop drawings for Office Building at Ovation detailed the cold-formed steel (CFS) panel frame corners using 54 mil track welded to adjacent metal studs.

“What makes the Office Building at Ovation unique is that the design utilized pre-finished, prefabricated panels with cold-formed framing and connections with large, curved elevations,” wrote Jake Wagner of R.A. Smith in the entry submitted to the 2023 CFSEI Design Awards.

“By panelizing the exterior, time spent on the building envelope installation was greatly reduced,” Wagner added. “R.A. Smith, Inc.’s responsibilities on the job were to create the exterior shop drawings with connections, panel layout and fabrication drawings (panel frame and finish tickets).”

Spandrel Frames with Infill Panels

A majority of the exterior building was designed as spandrel frames with infill panels having various widths intermittent along the south and east elevations, creating a randomized facade. The challenge was to locate the random infill panels within the standardized spandrel panel.

“As you move toward the west, the building turns at a 140-degree angle,” Wager wrote. “The bend in the building was designed as a ‘corner’ panel, taking into account each angle and adjacent panel while utilizing the connection back to the primary structure with outrigger clips.”

“The building transitions into a mix of spandrel panels and full-height panels with pin connections at the fourth floor,” the awards submission further added. “As you move to the northwest and north elevations, the building’s exterior facade and floor slabs curve.”

In its CFS panel frame designs, R.A. Smith factored the office building’s curve coming into flat, 90-degree corners.

To design the panels with the curve in mind, segmented strut channels were welded to the slab edge angle early in the design process. This allowed the panels to snap into the 13/16″ strut channel with drift clips or dead load clips at any location. 

Flat Facade Transitioning to a Curve

R.A. Smith designed the panels and frames, taking into account the curve and the stand-off from slab and panel gaps to create 12-foot modular panels with a curved track. The curve of the track was accounted for when placing the studs in the frame.

The frames were duplicated and standardized across the curve to expedite and simplify the building and erection of the panels. The curve coming into flat or 90-degree corners (both inside and outside corners) were also figured, detailed out and designed into the panel frames. The last panels at each floor, coming into the corners, were left for field measurement to fit perfectly into the adjacent panel.

Download the PDF version of R.A. Smith’s shop drawings for Office Building at Ovation.

Another challenge was at the north elevation. The east portion of the facade starts out flat (or 90 degrees at the corner) and transitions into the curve of the rest of the north facade. This was designed similarly to the corners but had to account for a flat track and framing butting into a curved track and framing. 

This was achieved by welding the frame in a shop, produced with sheathing and an exterior insulation finishing system. This allowed for different shaped frames to be created in the Grayhawk shop in a controlled environment before going on site.

The result was a carefully designed frame and exterior system that harmoniously worked with the primary structure to produce an elegant and subtle facade. The form of the curve to the building “front” is elegant, while the rest follows subtleties to break up what could be a somewhat routine-looking office building.

Read R.A. Smith’s complete 2023 CFSEI Design Excellence – Commercial award-winning entry here.

Additional Resources

• SFIA’s Pat Ford Receives Distinguished John P. Matsen Award from CFSEI
• 4 K-12 School Design Trends that Make Use of Steel Framing
• City Green Project: Architectural Freedom, Less Material, Greater Speed