Two Summerlin office building, Las Vegas, USA

The Two Summerlin office building in Las Vegas impresses with its ecological standards, aesthetic design and economic implementation.

The community of Summerlin marks the western city limit of Las Vegas. It is a neighborhood under development, one of the most recently finished buildings is the Two Summerlin office building. Commissioned by the Howard Hughes Corporation, the driving force behind the project developments in downtown Summerlin, the office building is the corporation’s new local headquarters and also houses rental area that is used as co-working space. 

When construction began in September of 2017, the client issued a challenging schedule: as the Howard Hughes Corporation wanted to move in as quickly as possible, Two Summerlin had to be complete in August 2018. The tender was won by American firm Ed Vance & Associates, based in Nevada. The architects have been in business since 2006, had already worked for the project developer in the past and were able to successfully keep to the tight schedule in cooperation with subcontractors. 

Two Summerlin is a building with a silver LEED certificate. The team planned in accordance with ecological standards: the building is designed to generate low cooling costs despite the hot desert sun, and materials from local sources were also used. Inside, the architects used an energy-saving cooling and heating system as well as water-conserving bathroom fixtures. The landscaping features drought-resistant plants. Last but not least, there were requirements for recycling and the disposal of construction waste.

In their first draft, the architects designed a concrete screen with a glass façade behind it. They liked the look, but the client rejected the option based on costs. But the draft wasn’t without success: it convinced the Howard Hughes Corporation to opt for a concrete façade. They agreed on precast concrete parts with a textured finish. “The design progressed using a formliner product to mold the surface of the precast skin, which produced variations of texture, color and sheen in the exterior finish while staying within the aesthetic of the first proposed concept,” says Lori Lea of the collaboration with the architects. 

With six floors and more than 14,000 square meters of space, Two Summerlin is hard to miss. The façade breaks up the large volume of the building with a row of overlapping boxes. The design was adjusted to the surrounding buildings, such as the shopping center, the nearby arena and the One Summerlin office building, in order to meet strict local design requirements set out to ensure a harmonious architectural look in Summerlin. 

Although the formliners were produced to individual requirements, their use was economical. Ed Vance & Associates ordered a total of 223 formliners with two textures from the RECKLI SELECT series: Gascogne, a fantasy texture with wave-like lines, and Ardenne, a fantasy texture with plates creating a scale-like feel. 

Gascogne was to be inverted, but the positive model of the inverse pattern was in Herne, Germany. US Formliner had the master sent to the plant in Georgia by air freight before the order was officially placed. As soon as the order came in, production could begin without delay. 

The client’s tight schedule resulted in two additional adjustments: as the Western Pacific precast plant wanted the elastic formliners to be reinforced, US Formliner originally intended to use plywood in the casting process. This would slow down production to just one formliner per day. In consultation with Western Pacific, US Formliner decided to glue the formliner to a reinforcing structure retroactively. So multiple formliners could be produced and reinforced in one day. “I offered the customer options that would save production time and they were agreeable to all options presented. It was a great example of how a team effort between supplier and customer can work to obtain a workable schedule for both parties,” said Ronda Gilbert, Western Regional Sales Manager at US Formliner. The first part of the order was dispatched by US Formliner to Western Pacific in Sloan, Nevada, just 21 days after the order was received. The second delivery was sent five days later.

Digital files were used to precisely establish the positions of the individual formliners in advance. 156 formliners with the inverted Gascogne texture in 13 sizes, and 67 formliners with the Ardenne texture in 16 different sizes were produced using the model and used to pour precast parts in order to guarantee perfect connections and the exact continuation of the design. 

“The individual aspect of the panels is one of the most striking design features of the building,” said Lori Lea. Everyone involved is proud of the result - from the architects to the tradespeople.