This past April, Radius Track Corp. received the Excellence in Construction Award from CISCA, the Ceiling and Interior Systems Contractor Association. The Award, presented this week at CISCA’s annual convention, recognizes the company for excellence in designing and fabricating curved cold-formed steel framing for the Del Amo Fashion Center in Torrance, Calif. The project received top honors, the Gold award, in the West Region’s Ceilings category for difficult and complex projects.

CISCA applauded the complex framing design and manufacturing contributions Radius Track Corporation made to the successful delivery of the 102,000 square-foot ceiling of complex geometry and tight tolerances. The ceiling of curvilinear clearstory and skylights, some 65 feet above the finished floor, flowed into expansive curved soffits, soffit drops and sometimes gentle curves barely visible to the naked eye. All of these shaped by Curved-Right, the line of custom framing Radius Track designs with 3-D modeling, CNC fabricates, and delivers as a kit of parts. 

“Daylight from the clearstory windows and skylights create ever changing patterns on the curving planes of the ceiling. The finishes over our cold-formed steel framing bring that lightshow to life.  We are grateful to have CISCA recognize our ‘behind the scenes’ contribution” said Luanne Ketchie, director of sales at Radius Track.

With deep expertise developed more than 5,000 projects, Radius Track continues to lead the complex and curved framing industry with cold-formed steel, aluminum, and stainless framing solutions. Chuck Mears, FAIA and chief design officer said, “The Five-Step Process we employ outlines the level of services and products we provide to our customers and allows them to decide when to engage our expertise. Some choose to bring us on during design to validate constructability while others call on us to unify the complex elements into a constructable framing solution.”

Radius Track worked closely with Nevell Group, the framing and finish subcontractor and their engineer to deliver an efficient, cost effective solution that met the design intent and structural requirements. Once shop drawings were approved, Radius Track accelerated their delivery timeline by adding another manufacturing team to expedite CNC fabrication of the custom framing profiles. And this customer centric support extended well beyond the manufacturing floor.  “The product was spot on and their framing design delivered the complex geometry of the design intent,” said Nevell Group Sr. Estimator/Project Manager, Franciso Sanchez. “They have the expertise and technology to deal with all aspects of complex framing. They even provided our field leaders with 3D files in any format needed for their tablets so the guys in the field could see how the framing was to go together.”

Del Amo Fashion Center renovations and additions resulted from the collaboration of three architecture firms: Altoon Partners, for building envelope and coordination with interior work; Perkowitz & Ruth Architects for interior work; 5+design for design of the interior spaces. 

“The geometry was extremely difficult to resolve and communicate to the contractor,” said Ron Bernhardt, architect with Perkowitz & Ruth. “Successful delivery of the ceiling may not have been able to be done without 3-D modeling software because of the complexity and inability to dimension the design.”

Mears and Ketchie accepted the award for Radius Track and missed seeing Michael Nevell from Nevell Group, Inc. who missed the event due to travel delays.  They also credit the project’s success to Allied Building Products Corp. (AMS Montebello), a national distributor. All three companies are CISCA members.