Best Façade - Architectural Parking (Large Parking Structure)
This six-level, 2,200-car Dickies Arena Parking Garage will serve as a premium-seat-holder parking amenity for the 14,000 seat, multi-purpose Dickies Arena in Fort Worth, Texas.
The large precast concrete piers, spaced to align with, and encase, the structural columns, slope from bottom to top, and have multiple steps in the plan.
The ability of the precast concrete forms to accomplish the stepping and tapering of these pieces was essential to creating the desired architectural solution of the Dickies Arena Parking Garage. In conjunction with the fabricator, these piers were designed in 14 pieces to create a beautiful 3-dimensional shape that could be constructed on-site as efficiently as possible. Careful coordination of how these piers were pieced together, allowed most of the joints to be hidden within inside corners of the stepped profiles. Between the piers, a series of precast concrete spandrel panels incorporate a 3-dimensional relief based on Art Deco patterns.
A one-story base, which acts as the plinth for the five-story piers, is comprised of large precast concrete panels with punched openings and entrances into the Dickies Arena Parking Garage. These panels were designed with insets, in which brick was hand-laid on-site. The precast concrete was exposed at the heads and sills of the openings, much like the traditional details of masonry construction used in the original buildings within the complex. This detail allowed the base of the Dickies Arena Parking Garage to have a hand-crafted quality tying it to the new arena and the historic Memorial Center.
- Precast Concrete Producer – Gate Precast Co. – Hillsboro, TX
- Architect – David M. Schwartz Architects, Inc. – Washington, DC
- Precast Concrete Specialty Engineer – Stehler Structural Engineering – St. Paul, MN
- Engineer of Record – Walker Parking Consultants – Houston, TX
- General Contractor – The Beck Group – Fort Worth, TX
- PCI-Certified Erector – Precast Erectors Inc. – Hurst, TX
