National Steel Bridge Alliance
Prize Bridge Awards
The art of designing and building beautiful, efficient, economical and sustainable steel bridges has been practiced for more than a century. The American Institute of Steel Construction (AISC) launched its Prize Bridge Competition in 1928 as a way to showcase the beauty of steel bridges.
Since the Sixth Street Bridge won the first competition in 1928, more than 300 bridges have won first place in a variety of categories, and at least an equivalent number of bridges has received a merit or honorable mention award for finishing as runner up. Overall, this competition has recognized more than 600 bridges of all sizes from all across the United States.
Today's competition recognizes bridges on a biennial basis, with winners receiving recognition during the North American Steel Construction Conference/World Steel Bridge Symposium. Keeping with tradition, bridges are eligible for the competition based on the date they first opened to traffic.
The 2022 Prize Bridge Award Competition will open in May 2021. Eligible bridges must be built of structural steel, located in the U.S., defined as the 50 states, the District of Columbia, and all U.S. territories; and completed and opened to traffic between after January 2018.
Congratulations to the 2020 Prize Bridge Award Winners
The American Institute of Steel Construction and the National Steel Bridge Alliance are proud to announce the winners of the 2020 Prize Bridge Awards.
Since Pittsburgh's Sixth Street Bridge won the first competition in 1928, more than 600 bridges of all sizes from all across the United States have received a Prize Bridge Award. Some of those bridges, such as the Wabash Railroad bridge in Wayne County, Mich., which won a prize in 1941 and still carries railroad traffic more than 70 years later, have actually outlasted the companies that built them.
"These projects are tributes to the creativity of the designers and the skills of the constructors who collaborated to make them reality," said AISC President Charles J. Carter, SE, PE, PhD. "Steel shines and soars on their talents and we celebrate the accomplishments these projects represent."
AISC and NSBA would like to thank the 2020 Prize Bridge Award judges for their time and enthusiasm:
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Richard Marchione, deputy chief engineer (ret), New York Department of Transportation
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Shane W.R. Kuhlman, state bridge engineer, New Mexico Department of Transportation Bridge Bureau
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Frank Russo, vice president and technical director, bridge engineering, Michael Baker International
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Rob Richardson, west region bridge leader, associate vice president, HDR
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Dennis Golabek, GEC-FDOT Structures Design office, WSP
These dedicated judges considered every entry’s merits in terms of innovation, economics, aesthetics, design, and engineering solutions.
SHORT SPAN
MEDIUM SPAN
LONG SPAN
MAJOR SPAN
MOVABLE SPAN
SPECIAL PURPOSE
REHAB
RECONSTRUCTION
SPECIAL AWARD FOR RESILIENCE
LIBERTY BRIDGE, PITTSBURGH
The judges also elected to recognize Pittsburgh’s Liberty Bridge with a special award for resilience. This bridge, which was originally built in 1928, demonstrated the superior resilience of structural steel with a remarkable recovery from an accidental construction fire.
Judges weighed each project's use of structural steel from both an architectural and structural engineering perspective, with an emphasis on creative solutions to the project's program requirements; applications of innovative design approaches in areas such as connections, gravity systems, lateral load resisting systems, fire and/or blast protection; aesthetic and visual impact of the project; innovative use of architecturally exposed structural steel (AESS); technical or architectural advances in the use of the steel; and/or the use of innovative design and construction methods.
For more information about the Prize Bridge Awards and the winning projects, please visit aisc.org/prizebridge. High-resolution photos of the winning projects are available for download here. Please contact AISC's Dani Friedland at friedland@aisc.org or 312.670.5439 for additional photos of any of the winning projects.