February 07, 2020

Embry‐Riddle’s Mori Hosseini Student Union Wins 2020 AISC IDEAS2 Award!

February 7, 2020. The American Institute of Steel Construction bestowed a 2020 Innovative Design in Engineering and Architecture with Structural Steel (IDEAS²) Award—the highest honor the U.S. structural steel industry awards buildings across the country—upon the Mori Hosseini Student Union at Embry‐Riddle Aeronautical University, designed by ikon.5 architects with structural engineer Thornton Tomasetti.

Inspired by the gracefulness of birds in flight, the Mori Hosseini Student Union building at Embry‐Riddle Aeronautical University is an expression of its mission to teach the science, practice, and business of aviation and aerospace. Located at the front door to the campus, the clear‐span structurally expressive steel building’s gently soaring form expressing flight creates an iconic identity for the University and embodies its students’ values of fearlessness, adventure, and discovery.

Judges weighed each project's use of structural steel from both an architectural and structural engineering perspective, with an emphasis on creative solutions to the project's program requirements; applications of innovative design approaches in areas such as connections, gravity systems, lateral load resisting systems, fire and/or blast protection; aesthetic and visual impact of the project; innovative use of architecturally exposed structural steel; technical or architectural advances in the use of the steel; and/or the use of innovative design and construction methods.

The IDEAS² Award will be presented to the project team on the Embry‐Riddle campus later this year.