ASCE has honored SpeedCore with the 2026 Charles Pankow Award for Innovation, acknowledging its expansion of modular building methods. SpeedCore shows great promise for future construction quality, safety, and schedule improvements and represents the breadth and depth of successful collaboration across academia, the value chain, the supply chain, and standards developing organizations to create and strengthen new capabilities, processes, and resources to deliver these new methods.
SpeedCore’s success will inspire additional interest and fuel advancement and adoption of modular building methods. SpeedCore uses prefabricated, one-story-tall wall “modules” of steel plates separated by steel tie-bars combined to create the core walls. Modules are erected at the same speed as the surrounding steel floor beams, allowing the entire structure to proceed with the speed of steel without waiting for concrete walls/curing. After the modules are connected, concrete is placed in the cavity of the modules a few floors below the active steel erection floor.
Collaborative research and development began in 2005 and included Magnusson Klemencic Associates; Purdue University (Amit Varma, Mike Kreger, and Mark Bowman); University at Buffalo (Michel Bruneau); American Institute of Steel Construction; Cives Steel Company; Schuff Steel; Turner Construction; and The Erection Company.
The Charles Pankow Award for Innovation recognizes the contributions of organizations working collaboratively to advance the design and construction industry by introducing innovation into practice. It was instituted as a Society award in 2008.
