AIA Nebraska just announced its 2003 design awards winners, selected from a field of 91 entries. The AIA Nebraska Design Awards competition is an annual event for Nebraska architects, whose projects are judged on design, originality, extended use attributes, sustainability, budget, and use of environmental surroundings. This year’s jury members hail from Seattle: Chair Craig Curtis, AIA, Miller/Hull Partnership; Mary Johnston, AIA, Johnston Architects; Mark Hinshaw, FAIA, LMN Architects; and Tom Kundig, AIA, Olson Sundberg Kundig Allen Architects.

This year’s winners are:

New Construction

Better Business Bureau
Omaha
by Randy Brown, AIA, Randy Brown Architects, LLC

The architect reports that the owner’s intent for this project was to create a physical manifestation of their core values of integrity, stability, and openness, requiring a design solution that was both cost- and environment-conscious. The small site dictated a two-story solution, with each level having an ADA accessible entrance on grade. The main building entrance was designed with large horizontal windows to allow visibility to the interior, with a large overhang that shades the afternoon sun and a small sitting area. Located on a hill, the building was designed to frame the views to the horizon. “Total centerpiece, nothing was missed. Monochromatic, clearly articulated, edited architecture,” enthused the jury. “The client to support this kind of architecture should get a huge pat on the back. This project hinges on everything being perfect.” The Better Business Bureau project also won a Masonry Award for its use of structural burnished concrete exposed inside and out.
Photo © Farshid Assassi, Assassi Productions

Omaha World-Herald Freedom Center
Omaha
by John Cameron; Steve Gollehon, AIA; and Brian Thilliander, AIA, HDR Architecture, Inc.

The architects say this design presented an opportunity to make a statement about the Omaha World Herald’s 118-year history, tradition, and commitment to the business center of Omaha. To this end, they invited the public to see the newspaper being created by showcasing the press technology. The volume of space required for the press allowed an additional level for a reception area, an interior balcony for viewing the presses, and an exterior balcony to view the cityscape now undergoing a major renaissance of development. The jury felt that two elements of the project deserve special recognition: “The courage to put the press on the street and expose it to view, and the simple elegance of the utilitarian functions behind the public façade.” They also believe the client should be congratulated for “putting it in the public realm and spending the money to do it right.”
Photo ©Tom Kessler, Kessler Photography

Sinclair Hille Architects Offices
Lincoln
by Jim Hille, AIA, Sinclair Hille Architects

The challenge was to create an open office environment for a 30-person team-based architecture office that would allow for future growth while providing an image of stability and presence in Lincoln’s historic Haymarket District. The first new building constructed within the historic district responds with an exposed steel canopy framing, deeply red brick facades, stone sills and lintels to highlight fenestration, large expanses of warehouse-sized glazing, and varied intersecting roof profiles. The satisfying result “walks a fine line between recreating history and doing a modern building in a historical context,” according to the jury. “It fits the neighborhood in form and material.”
Photo © Paul J. Brokering, Paul J. Brokering & Associates

120 Blondo Building 2
Omaha
by Randy Brown, AIA, Randy Brown Architects, LLC

“This building shows that the architect is purely skilled in manipulating complex geometrical architecture,” said the jury. “It tells an interesting story about architecture having a lightness and defying gravity.” The developers wanted an extension of the original office building’s office space, plus retail space for a coffee shop, hair salon, restaurant, and financial office. The addition echoes the original building’s forms and materials to create the impression that it always has been there. The coffee bar, replete with a variety of sitting spaces, includes a counter with luminous walls backlighted to read as a sign from the street.
Photo © Farshid Assassi, Assassi Productions

St. Therese Catholic Church
Sioux Falls, S.D.
by RDG Schutte Wilscam Birge

St. Therese Catholic Church asked the architect to create a space to worship that could double as a hall, surrounded by informal gathering spaces, offices, and classrooms. To unite these spaces and tie the church to older downtown structures, the architects employed a beautiful pink quartzite stone, abundant in the local area, as aggregate for concrete walls and columns. Cast-in-place concrete and concrete block, used in concert with wood and steel detailing, caused the jury to single out the building’s “good expression of materials.” They found the church to be a “nice reference to vernacular forms that seem to fit that setting. The subdued-simplicity interior is detailed equally as well as the exterior.”
Photo © Tom Kessler, Kessler Photography

Extended Use

Quality Telemarketing
Vermillion, S.D.
by Randy Brown, AIA, Randy Brown Architects, LLC

This project aimed to preserve the character-defining elements of a former tool manufacturing plant while rehabilitating the space for a telemarketing company that expressed a desire to improve efficiency and attract new employees. The architect incorporated the existing concrete floors, steel structure, roof joists, and hoists into the new design. Divisions of space included the reception area, training rooms, telemarketing workstations, conference rooms, and break areas. The jury admired the “element of restraint by totally skilled architects” and deemed the design “very clean.”
Photo © Farshid Assassi, Assassi Productions

Poulson Kjeldseth Ad Agency
Sioux City, Iowa
by Randy Brown, AIA, Randy Brown Architects LLC

The jury found this advertising firm’s new home to be “successfully balanced between the old building and the new parts.” They also commended the project’s use of sustainable materials. The space, on the fourth floor of an 1890s brick building in a historic warehouse district, had been boarded up for 25 years. The architect peeled back the existing structure to the studs and floated a collage of contemporary elements within the space to create a dialogue between old and new, whole and part, order and apparent disorder. A movable monitor “swing” that complements the sliding partitions in the conference space won this project a Details Award.
Photo © Farshid Assassi, Assassi Productions

Masonry

Farm Credit Services of American Corporate Headquarters
Omaha
by Lowell S. Berg, AIA, The Clark Enersen Partners

The west façade of the building is an abstract representation of an agricultural calendar. The lower portion of the building is separated into structural building bays depicting the agricultural activity of the month it represents. “It’s the random texture and tapestry that’s appealing,” concluded the jury. “It’s a building that people will talk about.”
Photo ©Tom Kessler, Kessler Photography, Omaha

Details

McKinley Bathroom Wall/Door
Omaha
by Randy Brown, AIA, of Randy Brown Architects, LLC

Two artists hired Randy Brown to design a bathroom that would “inspire, produce discussion, and be an ever-changing experience.” One must ask if it is a door or a wall. If closed, it creates a perfectly enclosed space, but if opened, there is nothing to block it off. The jury favored this project because, they say, “it makes you smile.”

Photo © Farshid Assassi, Assassi Productions

Copyright 2003 The American Institute of Architects. All rights reserved. Home Page