Cogence Alliance announces the winners of the 2022 Cogence Drive Awards.
Cogence created the Drive Awards to honor the best in project collaboration. The awards highlight the critical role and immense value that collaboration and innovation bring to building projects. The awards also demonstrate to the A/E/C community how their contributions are improving project outcomes.
Cogence accepted submissions in the following categories: Project Award (Extreme), Project Award (Large), Project Award (Mid-Size), Project Award (Small), Individual Award, and Emerging Leader | Rising Star. Submissions were evaluated by an independent, national jury.
The awards were presented Wednesday, September 28, at the Cogence Town Hall in Columbus, Ohio.
Drive Award, Small Project: Welsh Academy | St. Ignatius High School
Collaboration Highlights: The Owner brought the design and construction team on at the onset of the project. The collaboration and scope development accomplished in the design phase allowed for only Owner generated change orders during construction.
Project qualified for: Ohio’s Historic Preservation Tax Credit.
Highlights from the project:
- The project consisted of the adaptive reuse and conversion of an abandoned 8,000 sf, two-story historic church building constructed in 1863 into a three-story 11,430 sf academy for sixth through eighth grade young men. The entirety of the interior was excavated down 1.5” for a slab on grade, then two elevated levels of structural steel and slab-on-metal deck were constructed inside of the existing building. A three-story addition composed of CMU and structural steel, brick veneer, glass curtainwall and elevator were built onto the existing building.
Drive Award, Mid-Size Project: Cleveland Clinic H Building Infrastructure Upgrades
Collaboration Highlights: Design and construction teams were onboard from the beginning. They collaborated to develop the design and plan construction. Live cost estimating allowed them to provide estimates that matched the design and installation. Even more remarkable, most construction work successfully took place during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Highlights from the project:
- How do you replace a hospital building’s entire power system while keeping the building online? That’s what Cleveland Clinic needed to do with the H building, located on the main campus. H building is an active patient care facility, with services ranging from radiology to neurology to urology. Its operations impact the entire campus, as its electrical systems support the main cafeteria, the AGV robot systems, the pharmacy, and more. As a legacy building with aging and antiquated electrical systems, H building needed major system upgrades to avoid the risk of equipment or system failures.
Drive Award, Extreme Project: CWRU & Cleveland Clinic Health Education Campus
Collaboration Highlights: This project had two Owners, Architects, Engineers, and Construction Managers. The project embraced a culture of Continuous Improvement and the Last Planner System.
Accreditation: LEED Gold
Highlights from the project:
- The four-story 485,000 sf building houses CWRU’s School of Medicine and Nursing, and the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine. The building houses dental, nursing, and medical classrooms, labs, simulation, dental operations including oral surgery, medical and nursing clinical skills and simulation labs, faculty offices, student study and learning communities, library, virtual anatomy lab, full-scale helicopter simulation, administrative offices, as well as
ancillary services.
Drive Award, Emerging Leader | Rising Star: Rebecca (Becca) Tomlinson, Bostwick Design Partnership
Becca Tomlinson approaches project teams with a level of camaraderie that bolsters levels of communication…
Becca, an associate at Bostwick Design Partnership (BDP), is an integral team member on complex healthcare projects. She emphasizes innovative, collaborative cultures and confidence in delivering successful outcomes. She has become a mentor and provided technical leadership on several collaborative projects. Most recently, she was the interior healthcare planner and designer for Cleveland Clinic’s Mentor Hospital, which had a tri-party agreement.
In addition to being technically savvy, Becca exemplifies the Cogence Mission. She embodies a collaborative spirit and thoughtful approach on projects, transforming how teams deliver reliable results. Through intentional actions, behaviors, and effective collaboration skills, Becca creates an inclusive culture that enhances her teammates’ strengths. She earns respect and trust through her honest leadership skills and working side by side with all levels of each team. This provides insight to leverage everyone’s strengths, helping each team member reach their full potential.
The recommendation letters accompanying Tomlinson’s nomination emphasized her authenticity and engagement, as well as her desire to keep 
learning and growing.
Additional Awards Available for Order
