2020 DCC Award Winner
The Culver Steps, Shaw & Sons

First Place: Architectural Cast-in-Place Concrete, Over 5,000 SF

A near-acre-sized public plaza features “The Grand Staircase” that cascades down the side of a building, forming landscaped terraces and seating. Also called the Culver Steps, it connects to a four-story, mixed-use building occupied by Amazon. The entire plaza sits over a new, two-level, underground parking garage.

A full-scale mockup helped Shaw & Sons build the complex faceted steps while maintaining the refined surface finish, cement with a light acid wash. CAD drawings helped with the form fabrication. The steps have no square walls; every form is on the diagonal.

Shaw & Sons also installed 13,763 cubic feet of EPS foam under the steps and paved 11,043 square feet of surrounding sidewalks. In addition, instead of using the specified Ipe wood, the company used a fine-wood, plank-finished concrete.