A limestone building in Austin, Texas, has won the nationally recognized Tucker Design Award. The honor went to Page Southerland Page Architects for the University of Texas Health and Learning Building, and the stone on its walls came from Continental Cut Stone.
The award was presented on February 25, 2018, at the Tobin Center in San Antonio. Josh Coleman, the lead architect on the project, accepted it on behalf of the firm.
The building is clad in Cordova Cream limestone, quarried locally. Its masonry facade covers roughly 25,000 square feet. That surface is made of more than 10,000 separate pieces, and they are far from identical. Some are smooth, flat stones, while others are custom shapes or trapezoids cut to fit a specific spot.
Continental Cut Stone fabricated the limestone, and C.W. Oates handled the masonry work on site. Because the profiles varied so much, every piece had to sit plumb and level in its exact place. That kind of precision is where the company’s computerized equipment came in, since automated cutting lets a mill turn complex drawings into finished stone.
The judges pointed to several things. They liked how consistent the design stayed from one level to the next. They also singled out the window and corner details as innovative. Finally, they noted how well the stone should weather as the building ages.
For the stone supplier, the project shows what natural material can do when old craft meets modern machinery. Continental Cut Stone runs its fabrication mill in Florence, Texas, and has about 30 years of experience. It specializes in custom cut limestone elements for architects and builders.
