ASLA NATIONAL 2026 · DESIGN WITHOUT BOUNDARIES

The Concept Held Because Collaboration Started Early

Many landscape structures get value-engineered somewhere between the drawing and the site. On the Creighton Quad pavilion, the fabricator was in the room before the budget was, so the build changed and the concept didn't.

Rebellion Fabrication: a steel fabricator landscape architects can bring in early to check buildability and protect the concept.

Tell us what you're designing

See how the Concept held

Case study

CREIGHTON QUAD - TERRACE & PAVILION
CREIGHTON UNIVERSITY, OMAHA, NE

Inside a warehouse with a person in a red hoodie looking up at the ceiling, which has exposed beams, piping, and a large metal structure that appears to be part of a mechanical system or equipment installation.
Construction lift working beneath a large outdoor shelter with a metal roof, supported by concrete pillars, on a partly cloudy day.

At a glance

  • Landscape architect: OJB Landscape Architecture

  • Fabricator: Rebellion Fabrication

  • Method: large shop-welded assemblies, bolted in the field, no field moment welds

  • Result: main structure set in two to three days; original design was scheduled for two weeks

Two to three days to set the main structure. Built the original way, it would have taken two weeks.

On the pavilion, the original design called for the main structure to be assembled in the field from a large number of individual components, pieced together and joined with moment welds made in the field. That's the conventional path, and it's slow: field moment welding is skilled, weather-dependent work, done one connection at a time, high off the ground.

Rebellion pushed for a fundamentally different build. Instead of many small parts, we fabricated the structure as a handful of large-scale assemblies. Larger pieces with fewer splices, welded in the shop, connected in the field with bolts. The whole approach was driven by shipping and erectability: engineered around the raw material's real dimensions and actual transport limits, and detailed to eliminate field moment welds entirely.

The architect and structural engineer were part of that decision, not handed a substitution after the fact. The build method changed. The concept didn't.

A modern architectural structure with a large, illuminated blue roof supported by beige pillars, set against a black background.
Construction site at night with a partially installed modern white roof structure and scaffolding.

not just a fabricator

From people who have already built with us.

“They understood the design intent, not just the drawing set. That’s rare, and it changes how a project actually gets built.”
— Ben Corotis Principal, ADBC Design Architecture
“We brought them in early and they treated the schedule like it was theirs to protect, not just ours to manage.”
— Brent Clausen Owner, C2 Building Company
“The level of detail work is what you’d expect from a shop three times their size, without losing the direct line to the people actually building it.”
— Michael Olsen Detail Manager, KL&A

What changes for you when rebellion’s in the room

01

Direct access, real ownership

You’re talking with the people who build it, not a coordinator relaying updates. When something needs a decision, they make the call.

02

Transparent, and provable

Estimating and pre-construction happen before the drawings lock, so you see how the number was built while you can still act on it.

03

The hardest part, found first

On a design-forward job, that's usually complex geometry. We verify it's buildable before it reaches the shop floor, and fix what's wrong on paper, not in the field.

Session Recap

Our session at ASLA National: Design Without Boundaries
Los Angeles • September 16, 2026

Tired of watching good designs get cut to fit a budget? That was the question behind our session at the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) National conference.

Most public structures move through design as a sequence, landscape architect to architect to fabricator, each working around decisions the last one already locked in. Ross Gredys, Nathan Elliott, and Ben Corotis presented a different model: bringing landscape architecture, architecture, and fabrication together from the earliest stage, instead of treating fabrication as a downstream constraint.

Drawing on three built projects, including the Creighton Quad, they examined how early collaboration expands design possibility, sharpens detail quality, and reduces the delays and cost overruns of late-stage coordination.

Presenters

  • A tattooed man with a beard and bald head, wearing a black T-shirt with text, is smiling with arms crossed in a workshop or gym setting.

    Ross Gredys

    FOUNDER & CEO
    Rebellion Fabrication

  • Portrait of a smiling man with graying hair, wearing a white shirt, against a light green background.

    Nathan Elliott

    Landscape Architect
    OJB Studios

  • Portrait of a man with blue eyes, bald head, and a slight beard, wearing a patterned dress shirt, standing outdoors in front of a grid of photographs or artwork on a wall.

    Ben Corotis

    Principal
    ADBC Design Architecture

Working on something hard to build? Let's look at it early.

Tell us what you're designing and what's still unresolved. Good places to start:

  • Complex geometry you're not sure can be built

  • A budget closing in on the details that make the concept

  • A build method or schedule that's putting the design at risk

Bring us the hard part. We'll work through it with you.