A simple request from the University of Wisconsin-Madison for the construction of its 102,000-sq-ft, $27.5-million La Bahn Arena presented an engineering challenge for the contractor.
"They wanted as much open space as they could get in the men's and women's hockey locker rooms," says Dave Beck-Engel, executive vice president, J.H. Findorff & Son, the project's principal contractor. "But with a traditional concrete slab, it got pretty thick, [and the] low ceilings got in the way."