South Atlantic Region Design Awards announced

Words: Jennifer MorrellThe 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.
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