National Award - Greater than $200 million

It takes true innovation to make a below-grade structure surrounded by a 100-ft-tall, mechanically stabilized earth wall feel light, but the SoFi project team did just that. That wall gives the stadium room to safely move during a seismic event at the nearby Newport-Inglewood fault.

Judge comment: “It's really a special project, and its setting is really thoughtful. The use of the structural steel is almost overwhelming because it in many ways feels as grand and as spectacular as any of the great churches that you may have been in--I hate to sound like I'm saying that it's a church because it's a sporting facility, but in many ways it has a magical quality to it. There's a lightness to it that really elevates the spirit. It's a dramatic experience.” -Anders Lasater, AIA, architect and principal, Anders Lasater Architects

Owner: Hollywood Park, Inglewood, Calif.
Architect: HKS Architects, Inc., Dallas
Structural engineer: Walter P Moore, San Francisco
Fabricator/erector/detailer (stadium bowl): SME Steel Contractors, West Jordan, Utah *AISC full member, AISC-Certified building fabricator and erector*
General contractor: Turner Hunt Joint Venture, Inglewood, Calif.