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At the International Woodworking Fair (IWF) in Atlanta, Wood Digest, Finishing's sister publication, announced the winners of its first-ever Innovative Design Excellence Award (IDEA) competition. The competition aimed to honor superior craftsmanship and creativity in professional woodworking.

The IDEA competition recognized woodworkers from across the country, representing the various segments of the secondary wood products market, for their company’s outstanding project design and construction in 13 categories. A panel of three industry experts judged the winners based on aesthetic appeal, craftsmanship, technique, unique challenges overcome, and the overall impression of the entry.

ONSITE Woodwork Corporation won Best in Show — as well as first place award in the Architectural Millwork: Specialty Interiors category — for its work on the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Center in Atlanta, Ga. The project began in June of 2002 and was completed approximately five years later in 2007. ONSITE manufactured and installed all of the millwork.

Essentially all the woodwork in the Cobb auditorium was curved, so field dimensions were extremely important. The ONSITE team used a laser measuring from the center of the stage to all walls and balconies; allowing the balcony models to be viewed in 3-D models with cross sections at any point. The project features elliptical radii and were higher in the center than the sides where they intersect. In order to not interfere with the acoustical characteristics of the room, the curved woodwork in the auditorium had to be built exactly as designed. Mitres needed to be calculated in 3-D because canted curvature of the panel shape needed to flow smoothly along the balcony radii. From the drawings, hard templates were made for certain locations and sent down to the jobsite to verify dimensions.

In the end, more than 150 veneered, canted, double-curved panels were produced to exactly the same cross-section dimensions — complete with critical compound mitres cut the length of a curved panel over 7 ft. long and 12 in. deep. During curved panel production, ONSITE employees vacuum pressed panels in batches of three, loading three wet, ¼-in. MDF layers at a time — and finally an outer layer of veneer — at the beginning and at the end of each shift. Typically, nine completed panels would be formed in a day.

The center of the balconies were higher than the sides, so all of the veneer panel segments were unique and had different mitre cuts on each end — no two segments had the same mitre cuts. Each panel was individually drawn.

Visit www.wooddigest.com/IDEA to find out more information about the winning entries and to find out how you can enter the 2009 IDEA competition.