Higher Education Shines in 2011 AIA Portland Design Awards

Higher Education Shines in 2011 AIA Portland Design Awards

Honor Award: The Mt. Hood Community College Early Childhood Development Center in Gresham, Ore., designed by Mahlum. Jury Comments: It’s a huge accomplishment to achieve such a high quality design for a public project of this type. The eloquent sculpting of light cuts through the thickened walls. The spaces are wonderfully scaled for both children and adults. The ingenious arrangement of the building components on the site creates a village‐like community. Image courtesy of Lincoln Barbour.

Honor Award and Mayor’s Award for Design Excellence: The Tandem Townhouses in Portland, Ore., designed by Works Partnership. Jury comments: Adventuresome use of materials for both the exterior and interior. [The building features] wonderful interior detailing and use of perforated materials. Image courtesy of Bruce Wolf, Works Partnership.

Honor Award: The Legacy Emanuel Medical Center Central Utility Plant in Portland, Ore., designed by ZGF. Jury Comments: Expertly executed at every level from siding down to the detail. There’s subtle and evocative use of light that animates the building. There was a real inventiveness in the use of standardized industrial materials. Image courtesy of Pete Eckert.

Honor Award: The Digital Animation Building and Campus in Glendale, Calif., designed by Lever Architecture. Jury comments: A fantastic transformation of a common industrial building. There is a beautiful choreography of light and space. Image courtesy of Jeremy Bitterman, Lever Architecture.

Honor Award and People’s Choice Award: Bud Clark Commons in Portland, Ore., designed by Holst Architecture. Jury comments: A beautifully and cleverly composed elevation, using one window type to create a subtly dynamic façade. The courtyard and its landscape are ingenious working components of the building as both social and architectural transition spaces. Image courtesy of Sally Schoolmaster.

Honor Award: J-Tea in Eugene, Ore., designed by Benjamin Waechter Architect. Jury comments: A dramatic transformation of a typical bungalow into residential and commercial space. The canopy, the porch, the tea walls, and the tea bar are all equally and carefully considered. It’s a nice set of transitions between the street and the interior of the tea bar. Image courtesy of Sally Schoolmaster.

Merit Award: Two Story Four Square House in Boise, Idaho, designed by Beebe Skidmore Architects. Jury Comments: The house envelope is so beautifully detailed that it feels very taut, and accentuates the relationship of solid to void. The language of the new house taps into the historic neighborhood, but within a Modern idiom. It’s an invigorating experience moving from the rooms of the old house into the spaces of the new addition. Image courtesy of Beebe Skidmore Architects.

Merit Award: Body Vox Dance Center in Portland, Ore., designed by Boora Architects. Jury comments: A wonderful quality of daylight impressively achieved on a shoestring budget. Image courtesy of Jeremy Bittermann.

Merit Award: The Interchange House in Portland, Ore., designed by William Kaven Architecture. Jury comments: It’s a house that flows from inside to outside, and also maintains a street presence with the two story façade. Image courtesy of Sherri Diteman Kaven.

Merit Award: The University of California-Riverside School of Medicine Research in Riverside, Calif., designed by SRG Partnership. Jury comments: [These are] wonderful light‐filled spaces for work and research. [It features] thoroughly integrated sustainable strategies, especially [for] a lab building of this type. Image courtesy of Lara Swimmer.

Merit Award: Simon and Helen Director Park in Portland, Ore., designed by ZGF. Jury comments: It’s deceptively simple when you see it on the cityscape, [but] it’s actually very complex with the underground parking decks. We liked the subtle play with the slope to create a variety of spaces. We enjoyed how it is designed for the day and the night with the fountains and the animated canopy. Image courtesy of Eckert and Eckert.

Citation: Everett Community College Student Fitness Center in Everett, Wash., designed by SRG Partnership. Jury comments: We liked the way that there was a very straight-forward exterior wrapping in a highly dynamic interior. There is wonderful visibility [from] one space to another. Image courtesy of Lara Swimmer, Nathaniel Wilson.

Citation: The University of Oregon James F. Miller Theater Complex in Eugene, Ore., designed by THA Architecture. Jury comments: A sophisticated vocabulary of exterior cladding effectively ties together and distinguishes the new from the old. Image courtesy of Cesar Rubio.

Sustainability Award: Portland Community College Newberg Academic Center in Newberg, Ore., designed by Hennebery Eddy Architects. Jury comments: [It’s] 100 percent carbon neutral. [We] enjoyed the expression of the vent stacks, and how the built form was an expression of the performance diagram of the building. Image courtesy of Stephen Miller.

Craftsmanship Award: The Quiet House designed by Randy Stegmeier, Assoc. AIA, Ryan Yadan, and Jenn Ward, built by Precision Construction/Hoffman. Jury comments: The detailing, particularly interior to exterior, was sublime. All the materials were equally considered inside and out. Image courtesy of Jeremy Bitterman.

Unbuilt Merit Award: The Columbia Boulevard Support Facility in Portland, Ore., designed by Skylab Architecture. Jury comments: Beautiful integration of the landscape and the structure. Every aspect of the building focuses on water retention. [It demonstrates] a clear sustainable site strategy manifested in the landscape and the building. Image courtesy of PixelPool.

Unbuilt Merit Award: The Overton House in Portland, Ore., designed by Works Partnership. Jury comments: The project takes discreet [rooms from a] single‐family house and inserts them into a warehouse to create a unique hybrid. Once completed, it will create all kinds of domestic interchanges and activity possibilities. Image courtesy of Works Partnership.

Unbuilt Citation Award: The Tower House in Portland, Ore., designed by Benjamin Waechter Architect. Jury comments: A reinvigoration of the tower house type. Image courtesy of Benjamin Waechter Architect.

Unbuilt Citation Award: The N Mississippi Apartments in Portland, Ore., designed by Works Partnership. Jury comments: A lot of variation is achieved with a limited number of elements. There is an elegance to the simplicity to the façade. Image courtesy of Works Partnership.

Unbuilt Citation Award: The Lubavitch Center for British Columbia in Vancouver, B.C., designed by Architecture Building Culture. Jury comments: [We] liked the way the project proposes an immersive environment in an existing shell. The design transforms the atmospheric quality of the interior. Image courtesy of Architecture Building Culture.

Back to AIArchitect January 20, 2012

Go to the current issue of AIArchitect