The South Atlantic Region (SAR) Design Awards were announced at
the Woodruff Arts Center recently in Atlanta. Eleven entries
from Georgia were recognized among the 21 awards granted that
night. The award submissions were juried on Aug. 10 in Seattle. AIA South Atlantic Region Executive Director, David
Crawford, Jewel Warlick with the Brick Industry Southeast and SAR Design
Awards Chair, Dennis Stallings, AIA, were hosted in the office of the
jury Chair David Miller, FAIA at the Miller Hull Partnership. The jury
considered 165 SAR Entries along with 12 Brick submissions. David
Miller, FAIA was joined on the jury by Scott Wolf, FAIA, Kirsten Murray,
AIA, Susan Jones, FAIA, and Rick Zieve, FAIA.
Winners from Georgia Include:
Brick Honor Award - Southern Polytechnic State University, Architectural School Addition - Cooper Carry, Inc.
Brick Manufacturer: Endicott Clay Products. The new 14,600-square-foot 'Design II' Architecture Studio addition at Southern Poly houses the
Department of Architecture's second year design studios. The building's
exterior materials are primarily brick and composite metal panels and
also incorporated glazed walls that encourage natural day lighting. The
south façade includes four brick walls that face the primary pedestrian
circulation route. The façade orients east-west, so that the movement of
the sun casts dramatic shadows and changes the visual effect of the
patterning.
Honor Award - 1315 Peachtree Street - Perkins+Will. This
renovation of a 1986 office building addresses the challenges of
creating a living laboratory and educational tool that reflects the
firm's environmental commitment to its staff, clients and community, and
its on-going pursuit of design excellence and its value to society. The
building had to reflect these values by meeting the highest levels of
sustainability, by allowing their employees to work in an
interdisciplinary, integrated manner by fostering creative, inspiring
design, and by serving as a "living lab." The project's goal is to
achieve the highest LEED Platinum Certification and meet the 2030
Challenge. The jury noted that the rational and unadorned architecture
will stand the test of time.
Honor Award - Benjamin E. Mays High School - Perkins+Will.
This project represents a total transformation of a 1980's
comprehensive high school into a newly renovated 350,000 square foot
facility designed as part of Atlanta Public Schools transformation
program to build career-based academies. The north and south perimeter
areas of the school were completely gutted and replaced with classrooms
to house the desired four career academies. With the gym and auditorium
remaining in place, the central core of the school was totally
demolished and replaced by new construction that houses the school's
shared facilities: a new two-story media center, two-story cafeteria,
and new science rooms. The jury noted powerful spatial interplay,
with almost all spaces washed with balanced natural light to minimize
the need for artificial lighting.
Honor Award - SCAD Museum of Art - Sottile & Sottile and Lord, Aeck & Sargent in association with Dawson Architects. The
SCAD Museum of Art is a new 82,000-square-foot contemporary art and
design museum, which reinvigorates the ruins of a 19th century railroad
freight warehouse. The dazzling architectural program features
exhibition galleries, a theater and classrooms, as well as urban
streetscape improvements and a vibrant courtyard. This landmark project
is guided by an architectural philosophy of contrast on all
scales-preserving the beauty of the site's industrial grandeur with a
design language rooted in simplicity and clarity. The jury felt this
sensitive renewal represented a fine civic project noting the ancient
shell forms a container for dynamic, contemporary spaces.
Merit Award - Mark Jefferson Science Project - Lord, Aeck & Sargent. This
addition to the Mark Jefferson Science Complex at Eastern Michigan
University artfully knits together three functionally and visually
disparate, aging science buildings. It creates a science terminus to a
major pedestrian mall and a new image for the university and science
programs from multiple prominent campus entry points - each containing
all new infrastructure and allowing renovation of the existing buildings
to be phased without disruption to teaching. The complex integrates and
displays science, teaching and research to the university community and
incorporates multiple strategies to enhance visibility of
sustainability (sunshades, green roofs, rain gardens, and energy
monitoring). The jury noted that the labs are highly transparent creating the idea of science on display.
Merit Award - Rehabilitation of the Hinman Research Building - Lord, Aeck & Sargent. Originally
designed by P.M. Heffernan, the Hinman Research Building is the first
freestanding research facility on Georgia Tech's campus. Characterized
by its mid-century design and materials and a 50-foot high-bay
laboratory, the building was rehabilitated and transformed into a
flexible new annex for Georgia Tech's College of Architecture. The
building is now home to graduate level architecture studios, computer,
interdisciplinary research and high fidelity simulation labs,
administrative offices, galleries and event space. It was designed to
house the Georgia Tech Engineering Experiment Station, the first and
flagship facility of a system of engineering experiment stations that
paralleled its agricultural counterpart. The jury noted that this was
not just a preservation project.
The design elevates the brut reality of the former industrial shed into a
powerful volume that invites invention and creativity and a living
laboratory for students of architecture.
Merit Award - D.M. Therrell High School - Perkins+Will. This
project renovates and replaces an existing 1,200 student high school
while re-organizing it into three Academic Academies for Atlanta Public
Schools. The solution opens and clarifies the organizational diagram by
carefully placing new program elements between existing, framing a new
courtyard that transforms the life of the school both functionally and
experientially. The jury noted all spaces receive abundant amounts of
natural daylight, with the architectural expression supporting a more
transparent and sustainable solution. What once was an internalized and
inefficient building is now an academic campus designed for student
success.
Merit Award - Herman Miller Los Angeles Showroom - tvsdesign. The
client, an international furniture manufacturer based in west Michigan,
renewed its presence in Los Angles with a new 18,000-square-foot showroom
that reflects the company's commitment to forward thinking, problem
solving design and environmental stewardship. A former warehouse built
in 1956, the facility's bowstring trusses and significant potential
were intriguing both to the client and the architectural/interior design
team. The result of the collaboration includes a space that offers
dynamic spatial flow for the company's solution portfolio with room for
multiple product configurations, knowledge display and hospitality for
groups ranging from intimate gatherings to large audience events. The
jury noted the wonderful play of new against old where interventions are
held under and away from the structure.
Merit Award - Nancy Creek Guesthouse - Philip Babb Architect. The
Nancy Creek Guesthouse & Swimming Pool provide guest quarters and
outdoor entertainment space to a mid-century modern home in Atlanta.
The new additions were placed on a 60- X 120-foot site that was occupied
by an unused tennis court. Each element of the design was carefully
positioned to enhance its relationship to the existing house and the
movement of the sun. The jury noted the simple open volume and
clerestory that opens the structure to the tree canopy and outdoors.
Merit Award - Hotel Indigo - Surber Barber Choate & Hertlein Architects. Hotel
Indigo is a 130 room green boutique hotel situated on the edge of
Athens' downtown historic district. The eco-chic design sensitively
integrates the building and the associated guest arrival/parking
experience into the sloping site and creatively adapts local vernacular
style and materials into a decidedly modern aesthetic. The jury noted
the European feel and straightforward contemporary architecture.
Merit Award - Davis Hall, Syracuse University - Mack Scogin Merrill Elam Architects. Ernie
Davis Hall is the first residential project at Syracuse University in
over thirty years. As such, the new hall of 250 beds enhances the
quality of life of the students, participates in the general
sustainability of the campus and improves a previously underutilized
site. It completes the block, invigorates the life of the sidewalk and
street and addresses the scale of buildings to the west. It improves
connectivity and a distinct but compatible architecture complements a
campus of great architectural diversity. The jury noted the raw and
edgy spaces that are well suited to the programmatic uses.
Ken Simonson
Kermit Baker
Bernard Markstein