Winner: Tilt Up

Quarra Stone, an artistic stone manufacturer, with locations in Madison and Italy, opened a new 65,000-square-foot world headquarters in Sun Prairie. Serving the needs of artists from around the world, the building is uniquely designed to inspire.

The main aesthetics of this building focus on the tilt-up construction with features such as curved panels, sawtooth factory walls, and the building's overall horseshoe shape.

Building foundations, tilt-up panels, and equipment foundations utilize nearly 4,700 cubic yards of concrete with over 1,400 yards dedicated to the tilt-up walls.

Challenging aspects of this building’s design include forming the curved panels and ensuring their integrity, coordinating with the foundation and structural steel along the sawtooth edge to allow 7 “freestanding” panels, utilizing white limestone in the panels to be revealed during sandblasting, and constructing the horseshoe-shaped building around an existing hillside that the owner wanted undisturbed.

Excavation started in August 2022, with pouring foundations and tilt-up panels from September through December. Tilt-up construction was completed at the end of February 2023, allowing for 16 large equipment foundations, remaining interior work, and site development to be finished by February 2024.