Two projects completed by raSmith’s structural engineers were awarded Design Excellence Awards from the Cold-Formed Steel Engineers Institute (CFSEI).

The Hub State Street (West Lafayette, Indiana) and Stew Leonard’s (Paramus, New Jersey) received first place in the residential/hospitality and commercial awards categories, respectively. Hub State Street is an 11-story luxury student housing option near Purdue University. The modern mixed-use building is an eclectic mix of studio, 1-, 2-, 3- and 4-bedroom units.

The exterior utilizes prefinished prefabricated panels with all cold-formed framing and connection elements located dimensionally on the building. The structure has 400 different prefabricated panels and 200 different prefabricated Stolite finish panels, all precisely dimensioned and fabricated to fit, like a puzzle. Two different trellises, located at the top parapet and a building corner, wrap two elevations and span across multiple panels.  

The Stew Leonard’s grocery chain operates stores along the Eastern Seaboard, but the Paramus site marks its first venture into New Jersey. raSmith was contracted to provide structural analysis and design for two exterior silos. As trademarks of Stew Leonard’s, the silos feature curved cold-formed shear walls that are wrapped in two layers of plywood and finished with stucco.

The freestanding 50-foot-tall silo, built behind the store, consists of six stacks of three shear wall panels. The smaller silo is located on the front canopy near the entrance and consists of two 7-foot-tall segments, each with four shear wall panels.