Builders of a 201,000-sq-ft art museum set in a blasted-out ravine in northwest Arkansas knew they would be digging themselves into a hole when they signed on to construct the pet project of Alice Walton, heiress to the Walmart discount chain-store fortune. They were prepared for headaches associated with the job's remote location in Walton's 120-acre forest. They had braced themselves for building structures, dams and ponds in a flood-prone streambed. And they were prepared for architect Moshe Safdie's curved forms and cable-supported roofs.
“We were quite intrigued by the cable structures across the creek—which to our knowledge had never been done before—but the project was a complex challenge,” says George T. Vavrek, managing partner for construction manager-constructor LNJV, a joint venture of Linbeck Group LP, Houston, and Nabholz Construction Services, Conway, Ark.