Best of 2007

The magazine presents the 49 winners of the eleventh annual “Best of” competition, honoring excellence in construction and design in Texas.

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The magazine is pleased to present the 49 winners of the eleventh annual “Best of” competition, honoring excellence in construction and design in Texas.

Texas Construction's Best of 2007 construction and design competition received more than 110 entries from across the state in a wide variety of categories. Submitting firms ranged from general contractors and private owners to architects, engineers and specialty contractors. The competition does not rank projects by their budgets nor require that costs be disclosed. Submitted projects ranged from large, well-funded private facilities to small-yet-resourceful renovation/restoration projects. All entries are judged by the same five criteria: project management; construction or design innovation; client service; and safety (for construction entries) or design unity (for design entries).

For a submission to be eligible, it had to be received by the Call for Entries deadline of August 10, 2007. Projects must have been completed by Sept. 1, 2007, but not before Sept. 1, 2006, and all other submission requirements had to be met or the entry was not accepted. The winning projects were those that scored highest based on a five-point rating from the judges.

Our jury of five distinguished construction and design professionals judged the submissions in late August. The members of the jury donated their day to come to the magazine's editorial office in Austin, carefully review each submission and vote on the required criteria for each project and discuss those projects with their peers. If a juror was affiliated with a project in any way, he or she abstained from voting. Comprising this year's panel of judges were the following:

• Wayne Crew, executive director of the Construction Industry Institute at the University of Texas at Austin (www.construction-institute.org)
• Jay Landers, contributing editor to Civil Engineering Magazine, the official publication of the ASCE (www.asce.org/cemagazine)
• inda Mastaglio, owner and president of TWI (www.twi-pr.com). The North Texas based-firm serves A/E/C firms and associations across the U.S.
• Patrick J. Riordan, AIA, owner and president of Austin-based Riordan Construction Group (www.riordanconstructiongroup.co,)
• Dr. Gary Winek, professor and construction program coordinator, Department of Engineering & Technology, Texas State University in San Marcos.

After reviewing all submissions, the judges selected the best overall project for the “Judges Award” in the construction and design categories. This year, the judges presented the awards to two Austin projects. The Judges Award in construction went to the Samsung Austin Semiconductor Fab A2, submitted by Hensel Phelps Construction Co. The Judges Award for design went to the Dell Children's Medical Center of Central Texas. The project was submitted by its designer, architecture firm Karlsberger.

Next, the scores are tallied and projects are eligible for three levels of awards. A project is eligible for a “Best of” award in a category as long as there was a minimum of three eligible entries in that category. The highest scoring entry then wins the “Best of” award for that group. In other words, there can be only one Best of award in each category (except for a tie).

An unlimited number of projects, however, are eligible for an “Award of Excellence” or an “Award of Merit,” as long as they meet the minimum points for each award level.

The resulting winners are featured on the following pages, and many of this year's winners will gather to accept their honors at the annual Texas Construction Best of Awards luncheon, to be held on Dec. 4 at the Renaissance Hotel. Doors open at 11 a.m.

We wish to thank everyone who submitted an entry for this year's competition, and encourage our readers to send in their best projects for the 2008 competition.
For information on submitting in the next annual awards competition, visit texas.construcion.com.