Riverfront Park Pavilion Wins sixteen awards!

GuildWorks is thrilled that the U.S. Pavilion in Spokane, Washington has won sixteen international, national, and local awards honoring innovative design, illumination, and service as a community gathering space! 
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Among the awards are the highest levels of recognition offered from these prestigious organizations: Design-Build Institute of America’s Project of the Year 2020, the National Recreation and Park Association’s Innovative Design award winner, the Construction Management Association of America’s 2020 National Achievement Award and 2020 Project of the Year Award, Engineering News-Record’s Landscape/Urban Development Best Project, and the Illuminating Engineering Society International’s Award of Distinction for Outdoor Lighting Design 2020.

Spokane Mayor, Nadine Woodward, said “The U.S. Pavilion is the crowning glory of Riverfront Park, and is getting the recognition it deserves.”

Intended to be a temporary structure built for the Expo ‘74, GuildWorks was tasked with creating a new partial tensile array for the pavilion that would beautifully shade the ground where events take place. Initial designs involved building a separate structure but GuildWorks recommended using the existing Expo ‘74 historical cable net structure. 

The historical cable net structure was extensively studied using modern, tensile structure, FEM software. Careful analysis showed that the iconic 1974 structure was not only well engineered and constructed for its time but that the work was quite impressive for predicting the overall shape without modern computing! GuildWorks was able to understand the existing structure, incorporate advanced engineering, and reverse-engineer the 46-year old cable structure.​

The new shade array nestles into the existing structure with minimal intervention so as to preserve and enhance the existing geometry. Struts and cables hold seventy-two geometrical diamond membranes in a 3-dimensional shape, stabilizing the entire system and offering a unique visual experience year round. The array allows unobstructed views of LED light blades on the upper sections of the structure, as well. The elegant design array now provides shade and beauty to the new outdoor gathering and event space on the south side of the pavilion.

GuildWorks is proud to have worked closely with other team members and stakeholders on this distinguished project as we all reimagined this iconic structure, bringing it into the future while still honoring the past.

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  Whether you already have a design in mind or are seeking a full-scale design-build partner, GuildWorks can bring your visions to life.
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