Located on the banks of the Scioto River, the National Veterans Memorial and Museum is a tribute to the 250 years of military service of Ohio Veterans. This visual icon is structurally developed from a series of concentric arches. "The concrete and steel structure is literally a sculpture, as well as being the primary architecture of the facility," explained Nigel Carter, senior project manager. "Our structural blueprints include limited dimensional information due to the immense complexity of the structural design, which means we are actually building the entire building directly from the 3D model." He added that every piece of formwork, rebar, structural steel and curtain wall component is unique. "Each one is fabricated specifically for its singular location," he said.
International Design Services. Inc. made the structural model and detailed drawings of anchor bolts, embed items, steel HSS columns, wide flange beams, kicker braces, rods and roof frames. The structural detailing work was started January 2016 and completed last May 2017. The complexity of circular shape did require meticulous effort in steel layout because every connection point has its own ordinate survey. No steel members or connection points were measured or tied from the given grid lines. The exterior of this structure is a sloped circular shape with a floor plan that looks like a cross section of a nautilus sea shell. The perimeter is made of curve pre-cast walls with large unique opening cuts exposing the tall curtain walls at the inner walls. The roof has an open court on top that is accessible via the wide spiral ramp from the ground located at the edge of the structure. The approximately 500 tons of steel members were properly laid in spiral position using embed connections to the pre-cast walls. The construction began on December 2015 and the estimated date of completion is summer of 2018.
