To help regulate heating and cooling in the canyon space, with its west-facing wall of windows, a radiant heating and cooling system was installed before the final concrete floor was poured.

Nelson says his team was able to draw on experience from construction of the Salt Lake City Main Library, completed in 2003, which also used large amounts of both structural and exposed concrete.

“The library was a significant concrete effort, and we had a lot of the same people working on this job. They were able to use their expertise here,” he says.

Nelson adds that the team was particularly proud of the landing they constructed for the glass staircase between the third and fourth floors of the building. Referred to by workers as “the foot,” the landing bulges out from the shear-wall at the back of the canyon.

“We made a big gang-form in our shop and then lifted it up on the scaffold, attached it to the wall. We used some geofoam filler to reduce the weight and then placed the concrete,” Nelson says.

The final test for concrete workers was the upper floor dedicated to the history and traditions of Utah’s Native American tribes. After consultations with tribal members, designers created a circular, drum-like space resting directly on the deck, a form and placement that has traditional and spiritual significance to many of the state’s Native Americans.

“Building a curved surface and then building things on that curved surface was a challenge for everyone from the concrete team to the carpenters and the people designing the displays,” Nelson says. “It takes real skill to build ‘round.’”

Beware of the T-rex

Crews working on the finishing touches and displays in the final days of construction not only had a tight deadline to meet but also had to work around some unique obstacles.

“They had to get the dinosaurs in here so the guys working on the dioramas could do their work—and we were still finishing too,” says Nelson. “We had to wrap all the dinosaurs in plastic and then be extremely careful doing our finish work.”