The AIA named the 2014 Honor Awards, selecting 26 projects from over 700 submissions. Eleven of the winning projects were granted to architecture projects, ranging from a single-family home to a library and airport. The 2014 Honor Awards for Architecture are as follows:
Brooklyn Botanic Garden Visitor Center (New York)
Weiss/Manfredi
Incised into a berm that separates the 52-acre Brooklyn Botanic Garden from its parking lot, this visitor center (with its store, ticketing, exhibition, and event space) creates a new entry point to the campus along bustling Washington Avenue. A pleated copper roof atop the glazed volume at the street transitions to a lush green roof that the botanists use as a living laboratory for native plant species. The jury called the project “simple and exquisite,” noting that “it is a ribbon of a building, integrating roof, pedestrian experience, and city context.”
Centre for International Governance and Innovation (Waterloo, Ontario, Canada)
KPMB Architects
Located on site that used to house the Seagram distillery, this three-building complex houses the Centre for International Governance and Innovation as well as the Balsillie School of International Affairs. Clad in brick on the street-facing façades to echo the 19th century masonry neighborhood context, the two main three-story volumes house classrooms and offices. These interconnected structures are glazed along an internal courtyard, which also holds an auditorium pavilion. “The materials are wonderful—rich and warm—and every detail addresses the street," the jury said, also noting that “the openness of the architecture reflects the nature of the program—transparency of governance.”
Community Rowing Boathouse (Brighton, Mass.)
Anmahian Winton Architects
“This building is beautiful not just in aesthetics, but also in operability,” said the jury of this 30,000-square-foot boathouse on the Charles River. The naturally ventilated structure can store more than 170 boats in bays that are shielded by wood-veneered high-density composite panels on aluminum frames that can be opened and closed to regulate air flow and access. The jury called the project “simply done, …[with a ] clean, clear design concept, beautiful siting, and well done from a sustainability standpoint. The moves are limited but impactful, and the result is calm but interesting.”
Jackson Hole Airport (Jackson, Wyo.)
Nearly doubling the size of the existing airport, this expansion included the renovation of existing facilities and the addition of a new baggage screening building. The design “embraces the culture of the area in every way,” the jury said, noting that “the rusted steel, wood, and stone are great material choices that produced a regionally-inspired solution.” A new glass curtainwall allows expansive views of the surrounding National Park, and brings daylight into the renovated ticketing area.” Unlike any other airport, the Jackson Hole Airport is warm and comfortable,” the jury said. “These qualities, rather than security, drive the design.”
King Street Station (Seattle)
This renovation and restoration project sought to bring the historic King Street Station back to its 1906 glory, while updating it for modern transportation needs. The jury called it “An incredible transformation of an important civic landmark, and one that reinforces Seattle's commitment to sustainable design and to preserving our historical and cultural heritage.” The renovation, which is targeting LEED Platinum, included new retail spaces and public venues that will help to reinvigorate the urban context, as well as the restoration of a clock tower that is modeled after the grand Campanile di San Marco in Venice, Italy.
Lakewood Cemetery Garden Mausoleum (Minneapolis)
This decidedly modern 24,500-square-foot mausoleum is cut into a hillside in a historic cemetery in Minneapolis. Clad in dark stone offset by marble-and-glass mosaics that flank the entry and windows, the two-story structure, which the jury called “respectful and understated, but elegant and appropriate,” houses a committal chapel and reception space, as well as 4,800 niches and 750 crypts. Oculi flood the niche and crypt rooms with natural light. “The sculpting of natural light in this project is beautiful,” the jury said. “The materials are absolutely striking. There is not one false note to this building.”
The Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust (Los Angeles)
Belzberg Architects
Situated next to the Los Angeles Holocaust Memorial in Pan Pacific Park, the museum is largely below grade to engage the existing landscape—yet more that 75 percent of the interior spaces have access to natural light and views. Inside, materials are left exposed, including the concrete roof, and spaces are compressed and expanded in response to the graphic intensity of the chronologically-ordered displays. The jury noted that “descending into the museum is extremely important based on the physical, mental, and emotional transition one must go through in order to be prepared for the content,” calling the building “a very fitting, powerful, and understated vessel for the information and exhibits; it’s calm and appropriate.”
The Pierre (San Juan Islands, Wash.)
Olson Kundig Architects
This 2,500-square-foot residence on the San Juan Islands in Washington was inspired by a stone outcropping on the property. Situated on a single, open-plan level, (save for a separate guest suite), the living spaces feature concrete floors with aggregate harvested onsite during excavation; rock was left exposed in many spaces, with the marks from the machine-and hand excavation process left exposed. “This is a 'wish you had done it' project,” the jury said, “great concept, well built, and well executed… The juxtaposition of the built and the natural forms is very well done and well detailed.”
Quaker Meeting House and Arts Center, Sidwell Friends School (Washington, D.C.)
KieranTimberlake
With a simple materials palette of wood and plaster, the architects at KieranTimberlake turned a 1950s gymnasium into a space for quiet worship, which the jury called “a beautiful project that is very well detailed and imagined. A remarkable transformation.” The daylit space features walls clad in oak boards from old barns in Maryland; the exterior is clad in reclaimed Locust. Also included in the project are art and music facilities. The spaces come together to form a “beautiful reinterpretation with a sensitive vernacular touch,” the jury said.
SCAD Museum of Art (Savannah, Ga.)
Sottile & Sottile
In their design for the Evan Center for African American Studies at the Savannah College of Art and Design, Sottile & Sottile, with Lord, Aeck & Sargent, transformed the ruins of the country’s last Antebellum railroad complex into an art museum, replete with galleries, studios, classrooms, and a theater. The entrance to the 82,000-square-foot expansion of the college’s museum is marked by a vertical lantern that emerges from the low-slung, 800-foot-long structure. “The Evans Center is a striking project,” the jury said, “ a beacon in this industrial area; a strong concept, beautifully and simply executed.”
St. Louis Public Library, Central Library Transformation and Restoration (St. Louis)
Cannon Design
Adding to a beloved landmark is never easy—less so when it is a Beaux Arts masterpiece by Cass Gilbert. Cannon Design restored Gilbert’s 100-year-old central library building, while also accommodating modernizations, and created a new public entrance and entry sequence on the north side.“The restored building is lovely, bright, and it maintains the Cass Gilbert glory," the jury said. “It is well detailed, restrained, and bold all at once.”
The 2014 AIA Institute Honor Award for Architecture jury includes: Scott Wolf, FAIA (Chair), The Miller Hull Partnership; Natalye Appel, FAIA, Natalye Appel + Associates Architects; Mary Brush, AIA, Brush Architects, LLC; Joy Coleman, AIA, Treanor Architects; Robert M. Hon, AIAS Student Representative; Brenda A. Levin, FAIA, Levin & Associates Architects; Michael J. Mills, FAIA, Mills + Schnoering Architects, LLC; G. Martin Moeller, Assoc. AIA, National Building Museum and Ed Soltero, AIA, Arizona State University.
Check out all the 2014 AIA Honor Awards.
