PCI Foundation challenge gives new meaning to fast track stadium design

What might a future high school football stadium look like? That was the premise of Project Precast 2020, a PCI Foundation design competition, staged alongside Precast/Prestressed Concrete Institute Convention and Precast Show 2020 activities last month in Fort Worth, Texas. The competition entailed five university student teams, each comprised of one architecture, one engineering and one construction management degree candidate. Teams participated under sponsorship and guidance of Sika Corp. and PCI members Clark Pacific, West Sacramento, Calif.; Consulting Engineers Group, Mt. Prospect, Ill.; Coreslab Structures; Metromont Corp., Greenville, S.C.; and, Tindall Corp., Spartanburg, S.C. The Clark Pacific team prevailed and took a $3,000 prize.



The winning Project Precast 2020 team brought together Washington University Architecture and Construction Management graduate student Courtney Prentiss; North Carolina State University Architecture graduate student Sarveswaran Ganapathy; and, California State University, Sacramento undergraduate Engineering student Lev Darney. The design competition drew degree candidates from 12 universities.
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“The students had no idea what their project was, nor had they met the industry mentors or other members of their teams,” says PCI Foundation Executive Director Marty McIntyre. The night they arrived in Texas, she adds, they were given an abbreviated version of the design challenge.

The teams had given 30 hours to research, collaborate, complete a one-page summary, prepare a PowerPoint presentation, and outline their final design to an audience of more than 100 who packed a Fort Worth Convention Center meeting room. National Football League alumni Larry Mallory (New York Giants) and Liffort Hobley (St. Louis Cardinals) served as jurors, along with Sika’s Paul Ramsberg, Turner Construction Vice President David Welber, FDG Partner Gary Wildung, and University of Colorado College of Architectural & Planning’s Matt Shea.