The AIA South Atlantic Region (SAR) recently announced the recipients of the 2003 SAR Design Awards at a banquet honoring the winners. Architects from North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia were invited to enter the awards competition earlier this year, drawing a record 231 entries from the three states. Of the 21 design awards, 13 went to architects from North Carolina. Georgia architects collected 6 awards, while 2 awards were presented to South Carolina architects.

Design Awards were split into two entry categories, interior and architecture. Pictured below are the architecture awards.

Honor Awards

Herman Miller Cherokee Operations
Canton, Ga.
by Mack Scogin Merrill Elam Architects (formerly Scogin, Elam & Bray)

This 330,000-square-foot building for a furniture manufacturer consolidates manufacturing, assembly, and distribution into one facility under a strict budget that demanded an economy of means. “The site—designed as well as the building—has an elegant and sophisticated plan that relates efficiently to the manufacturing function of the structure,” the jury remarked. “It could be a model for environmental consideration with this type of industrial project. We loved the way it continues architectural treatment into landscape.”

Photo © Timothy Hursley

Mountain Tree House
Dillard, Ga.
by Mack Scogin Merrill Elam Architects (formerly Scogin, Elam & Bray)

The jury loved this project’s “wonderful distinction between materials and their use. The contrast of rough and smooth gives a sculptural play to forms that is really elegant.” The architects report that the “advent of grandbabies prompted the conversion of the garage/potting shed into a playroom/bunkhouse leaving the need for a new garage/potting shed and oh . . . while we are at it . . . maybe another guest room . . . and perhaps a deck for viewing the meadow and the mountains.” “The scale of this submission is both miniature and heroic,” the jury enthused. “You can tell that the architect had a really good time doing this project.”
Photo © Timothy Hursley

Lee B. Philmon Branch Library
Clayton County Library System, Riverdale, Ga.
by Mack Scogin Merrill Elam Architects (formerly Scogin, Elam & Bray)

Within earshot of the Atlanta airport, the 12,000-square-foot library sits on a triangular, leftover site wedged between properties slated for development: a future gas station and convenience store to the north, a proposed strip mall to the west, and a long-promised parkway to the south and east. As the architects characterize it, “Corralled by sprawling suburbia, the little library asserts itself with quietude within a rapidly changing landscape.” “The big move on this project is canting the building then using it in the elevation treatment,” the jury noted. “The building makes a subtle transition with the site and continues with it throughout the structure. The window glazing gives spaces within the building amazing reflected light.”
Photo © Timothy Hursley

Sculptor's Studio
Durham, N.C.
by Frank Harmon

“This building has gone beyond its use into something very expressive while being regular and eccentric at the same time,” said the jury of this woodworking studio for a marine biologist with a passion for making art. A skeleton of built-up wood frames within a skin of galvanized metal boasts a monitor roof for north light, as well as a large window and porch offering quiet views to the wooded hillside. The architects wanted the studio “to express the craft of construction, because the clients’ work bears the mark of brush and chisel.” “This carefully thought-through project ends up being sculptural in itself,” the jury remarked. “The interior continues to the outside in a purposeful way. We like the extruded sections used to bring light directly into the project.”
Photo © JWest Productions

Willow Street Student Housing, Tulane University
New Orleans
by Mack Scogin Merrill Elam Architects (formerly Scogin, Elam & Bray)

“If this had been my dorm in college, I would have never moved out,” remarked one of the jurors about this 330-bed student residential hall with café, classroom, and gathering space. With a building area of 108,000 square feet and a $12 million construction budget, “the architecture is the vehicle of consensus building,” the architects say. “Its configuration sponsors the coexistence of seemingly disparate programs and interests.” The jury particularly liked the composition of solids and voids, as well as the spaces created at street level where students can sit and interact. The jury also admired how the building turns the corner: “This nagging issue was beautifully handled on this building.”
Photographer © Timothy Hursley

Merit Awards

Blacksmiths’ Studio, Penland School of Crafts
Penland, N.C.
by Frank Harmon Architect

In designing this blacksmith’s studio for teaching iron-working in the Appalachian Mountains, the architects strove to create a flexible, daylighted, and naturally ventilated workplace opened to mountain views and air. Southerly winds flowing beneath the studio roof cool the work space and exhaust coal smoke. Steel, concrete block, and polycarbonate glazing together express and honor the craft of making. The jury remarked on the shed’s “deeper layer,” which reflects the architects’ thinking about how the structure works for its use and environment. “The lighting reinforces the linearity and sense of movement through the building,” they noted. “We see these types of buildings all around us and take them for granted.”
Photo © Timothy Hursley

BTI Center for the Performing Arts
Raleigh, N.C.
by Pearce Brinkley Cease + Lee PA

Programmatically, this project consists of two additions, the Fletcher Opera Theater and the Meymandi Concert Hall, to Raleigh’s existing Memorial Auditorium. To acknowledge the importance of the auditorium and its site, the additions flank the original building, thus also allowing for civic-scaled use of the remainder of the site. “The panorama image of this project speaks to the central historic structure that connects the new to the old,” said the jury. “The grouping creates an urban ensemble. For a small downtown, there is a real delicacy of scale in this project.”
Photo © 2003 JWestproductions.com

Julius R. Chambers Biomedical Biotechnology Research Institute
Durham, N.C.
by The Freelon Group Inc

Befitting a biotech center, this project is very cleanly planned,” noted the jury. “It’s also nice how the communal space is articulated by the building materials and shifting from one use to another is done well by varying the materials.” The first building on campus devoted solely to research, this building represents a landmark for North Carolina Central University, a historically black university. The building houses an animal facility, research labs, faculty offices, administrative offices, and a 100-seat auditorium. The jury also admired the handling of the complex mechanical systems noting that the “good use of light and using metal and brick works well to articulate the spaces and enclosures.”
Photo © James West/JWestproductions.com

Helios Coffee Shop/Carson Medlin Building
Raleigh N.C.
by Clearscapes PA

“The architects have made a dramatic change on this site,” said the jury of this adaptive re-use project that transformed an unremarkable and unoccupied early 1960s office building into a mixed-use complex. The modestly scaled building now houses a corporate headquarters on the upper level and a small café with generous outdoor dining spaces on the ground level. Located in a former light industrial area at the edge of downtown Raleigh that has gradually become a thriving mix of restaurants, boutiques, and offices, this project contributes to the growing pedestrian-friendly character of the area. “The interiors are developed with a simple light palette that’s fresh and straightforward,” the jury remarked. “Planned very simply, the overall concept gives a more fluid connection through the building.”
Photo © jaymangumphotography.com

Honeymoon Cottage
Raleigh, N.C.
by Tonic Design

This house for a scientist and future architect began as a childhood dream. In process and product, this house served as opportunity and challenge. The designer and his wife acted as architects and owners, contractors and clients, laborers and occupants. “This house has the same program, $140,000 budget, and type of construction as its neighbors,” the designers say. “With a goal to embrace and reinterpret, rather than to reinvent, Honeymoon Cottage accepts and celebrates the framework of its early suburban neighborhood.” “There is simplicity of means in this house with its inviting sense of place in the forest. Interior details are restrained yet have an interesting complexity,” the jury said. “We like the way the vertical quality of the house is exaggerated due to the narrow site.”
Photo © James West/JWestproductions.com

Market Hall Restoration
Charleston, S.C.
by Joseph K. Oppermann Architect PA

Market Hall was constructed in 1841, added at the westernmost terminus of Charleston’s public market sheds to provide a monumental entrance to the market along with a grand public meeting hall. A small and handsomely proportioned classical temple, Market Hall is considered the masterwork of Charleston’s premier architect of the mid-nineteenth century, E.B. White, and is designated a National Historic Landmark. The primary goal of the restoration was to conserve original building fabric, and the restoration included many modern techniques specifically designed for such conservation along with the use of traditional materials and methods to repair historic character-defining elements. The jury seemed glad that the architects “have taken us back in time with this project. We love the fact that this is a working market that is so connected with the life of Charleston.”
Photo © Eric Horan Photography

MCI Administration Building
Cary, N.C.
by O'Brien/Atkins Associates PA

This 260,000-square-foot administrative office building for 1,000 employees is the first of two master-planned buildings sited on a wooded ridge overlooking a lake. The building contrasts a six-story glass tower with a three-story glass bridge spanning a deep swale. Both tower and bridge offer transparent volumes of flexible, open-floor area to meet changing occupant needs, while stone masses containing building services and core functions serve as their abutments. “The architects were very deft in the detailing of this project. We liked the way the building related to the parking structure,” the jury said. “The entry sequences are nicely done as a bridge from the garage.”
Photo © Rick Alexander and Associates

MidCity Lofts
Atlanta
by Brock Green Architects & Planners
“This building handles a complicated site very well; lifting the housing above the parking appears to make the building float,” noted the jury. The architects viewed the design challenge as “forcing open issues of prototypical multifamily housing and integrating itself into the urban setting.” They strove to capture the space, light, and material of an old-style loft, all within modern contextualism via a concrete frame and masonry curtain wall. “There is a tendency in these types of projects to treat all the units as a whole, but this project’s strong façade articulation prevents that sort of redundancy,” the jury said. “The context of the project is addressed well at the street level with the brick. This is a major step forward for urban Atlanta.”
Photo © 2003 Rion Rizzo/Creative Sources Photography

Taylor-Hocking Residence
Scotland Cay, Bahamas
by Frank Harmon Architect

This three-story vacation house perches on an island in the Bahamas where there are no wells and hurricanes are common. The architects report that they designed the roof like an upside-down umbrella to collect rainwater. The inverted pyramid roof also helps cool the house by funneling air below it, while the large overhangs shade the space below. Structurally, the wood-truss roof anchors to four steel beams, which are tied to the foundations below by reinforced concrete columns. The living room, dining room, and kitchen occupy the top floor and capture the best views, breezes, and sunsets. “We loved how it presents itself as a house in nature that brings living space to the top, allowing the owners to live outside. Who wouldn’t want to be up there?” the jury asked. “It has a wonderful quality of floating above the trees. We love that the breeze can just blow through everywhere.”
Photo © JWest Productions

Varsity Female Locker Rooms Addition, McAlister Field House
The Citadel, Charleston, S.C.
by Liollio Architecture, Charleston, S.C.
“This is a tiny appendage that adds a whole new layer to the original building because of the social implications at the Citadel,” noted the jury. “A building solely for women would be unusual on many campuses, but its existence at the Citadel is especially notable. It’s not an apology, but a precedent,” according to the architects. As an addition to an existing field house, the locker rooms occupy a small slice of lawn and integrate into the streetscape. The building takes its color and materials cues from its neighbors and shares their qualities of mass, fortification, and monumentality. “The project lends a sense of thickness and permanence,” according to the jury. “There are playful connections across the two-story space, and you don’t expect the interplay on the inside.”
Photographer © 2003 Rick Rhodes

Interior Design

The jury also honored six projects for interior design. Photos of these projects appear on the AIA Georgia and AIA North Carolina Web sites.

Honor Awards

• Incara Pharmaceuticals, Research Triangle Park, N.C., by BBH Design, former office of NBBJ
• AV Metro, Raleigh, N.C., by Cannon Architects

Interior Merit Awards

• St. Peter’s Catholic Church Renovation 2000, Columbia, S.C., by The Boudreaux Group
• Plush, Raleigh, N.C., by Kenneth E. Hobgood, architects
• Hot Springs Convention Center, Hot Springs, Ark., by Thompson, Ventulett, Stainback & Associates Inc.
• DILO Inc., Charlotte, N.C., by ARCHITECTVS MCMLXXXVIII.

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