In the 52nd annual AIA Seattle Honor Awards program, a panel of critical observers reviewed some 150 entries from Washington design professionals, offered remarks, and announced awards November 10 to an enthusiastic audience of hundreds of architects and other architecture aficionados. A jury of Shigeru Ban, Shigeru BAN Architect, Tokyo; architect Brigitte Shim, Shim-Sutcliffe, Toronto; and novelist Matthew Stadler of Nest magazine presented awards to seven projects in the “idea” and “realized” categories: six citations, and one honor award.

According to Honor Awards Committee Chair Anne Schopf, AIA, the program sought to assemble both recent work and the thought that guides the current and future shape of our communities: “The theme ‘Idea Realized,’ selected by the committee, addresses the importance of idea in both built and unbuilt work,” Schopf said. Because idea informs all our work, the online-submittal format and jury’s review stressed the thought at the core of all projects submitted, whether realized in construction, commissioned or intended for possible construction, or presented in ideal form without reference to ultimate built achievement.”

The honored projects are:

Honor Award

Fauntleroy Residence
West Seattle
by Suyama Peterson Deguchi
for an anonymous client
Photo © Paul Warchol

A narrow beachfront lot serves as home to three existing structures: a modest, 2,600-square-foot main house and two rustic cabins. Four elegant fir trees planted by the original owner frame the site’s panoramic views to Puget Sound and the Olympic Mountains. The architects designed the house as “a minimalist counterpoint to protect and preserve the fragile nature of the existing rustic cabins.” Wherever possible, they preserved archeological remnants of the site. From the street, the house appears as a simple one-story structure, subtly referencing the context of its older neighbors. As one walks through the entry gate, the architects said, the expanse of the simple shed roof (a reference to Northwest picnic shelters) become apparent, “drawing one’s eye over the lowered bedroom box to the view of Puget Sound and the mountains beyond.” The house, a series of slowly unveiling sequential spaces, weaves exterior courtyards and interior spaces to blur relationships between outside and inside. The cabins and the new residence are stand-alone pieces that can be viewed and experienced separately, but, together, the intended contrast heightens the visitor’s experience of both, according to the architects. “At ease with its transitions and variety, simple and exacting in both materials and craft, the Fauntleroy residence is a deeply personal, world-class achievement,” the jury said.

Citations, “idea”

Majiwa Village Center
Majiwa, Kenya
by Geoff Piper, Jamie Fleming, and Matthew Sullivan
for the people of Majiwa, Kenya

In the village of Majiwa, Kenya, over half of the adult population is infected with AIDS, and through this project, the architects explored the potential healing role of architecture in this present crisis. Their master plan for a new village center attempts “to provide a rallying point for the community to support orphans and widows, educate young and old, treat those infected and affected by HIV/AIDS, and achieve self-sufficiency.” Working in partnership with the community, the three designers traveled to Majiwa to gain firsthand knowledge of the epidemic. They explored the potential for students and the villagers to create a community center through a series of built interventions modeled after the historic homestead layout of the people of Majiwa. Using indigenous materials, techniques, and cultural patterns, the designers and villagers planned a health and resource center, children’s village (orphanage), meeting pavilion, and library. “We admire the effort made to reach a community in need,” the jury concluded. “That the architects have initiated a process of collaboration with the people of a small village in Kenya—despite the enormous challenge of travel and engagement across deep cultural difference—stands as a great beginning.”

Ed Erickson Theatre off Broadway
Seattle Central Community College, Seattle
by LMN Architects
To be completed by fall 2004

This theater renovation treats the stage, seating, and lobby areas as one integrated theater space, “in the spirit of the Commedia dell’Arte,” according to the architect. Providing performance space for the drama program at Seattle Central Community College, the design called for a very economical approach. Using operable curtains, careful placement of technical elements, and a new entry, the architects were able to expand the existing 80-seat viewing area to 120 seats. “A room-length curtain can be pulled closed to divide the audience and stage from the lobby,” the jury explained. “With the curtain pulled open, these separate functions unite and refigure the street as a second lobby where another public looks in on the drama of public theater.”

Citations, “realized”

Bradner Gardens Community Building
Seattle
by SHED
for Seattle Department of Parks and Recreation
Photo © Scot Carr, SHED

This 1,700-square-foot community building collects varied agriculture and environmental education activities under one roof at Bradner Gardens Park. The roof itself collects rainwater and solar energy for community use, thus advancing an environmental and architectural position beyond sustainability, toward regeneration. This project entails partial reuse of existing CMU walls for unheated, utilitarian spaces, and a new building and roof for heated meeting and horticultural rooms. A breezeway between the two spaces serves as a covered circulation area. The large roof covering the structures diverts some 30,000 gallons of rainwater to tanks for tool washing, plant watering, and composting. Overflow from these tanks travels to a pond and is then pumped by the windmill for use on higher parts of the site. The roof integrates an 8.8kW array of photovoltaic panels (the largest in Seattle, according to the architect), which supplies energy back to the community via the local utility grid. “This project frankly addresses community needs by engaging important issues of sustainability, ease of use, and flexibility through a variety of promising strategies,” concluded the jury.

Skyspace Pavilion
Henry Art Gallery, University of Washington, Seattle
by Donnally Architects, with artist James Turrell
for Henry Gallery Association/University of Washington
Photo © Lara Swimmer

This permanent elliptical pavilion has a shape carefully proportioned to resonate with its surrounding courtyard space. The primary art experience is the “sky viewing room,” with an elliptical oculus that makes the sky appear as a “two-dimensional luminous entity stretched across the ceiling,” the architect said. The effect is especially pronounced at sunset, when the brighter light level gradually shifts from the exterior to the interior. The pavilion also has a retractable dome to protect the room from inclement weather. A blue neon tube within the sloped walls of the oculus rim indirectly illuminates the inner surface of the dome and creates a “daylight experience.” The pavilion façade is internally illuminated at night to create the third piece of the art experience. Vertical strips of LED lights, attached to the back side of the curtain-wall mullions, reflect off the inner wall’s plaster surface in a sequence of changing colors and patterns. “An astonishing work of art has resulted from a close collaboration between artist and architect,” commented the jury.

Leschi Residence
Leschi, Seattle
by E. Cobb Architects
for an anonymous client
Photo © Paul Warchol

“Through an elegant landscape design by Bruce Hinckley, Alchemie, the street elevation of this surprising house generously presents itself to passersby while still retaining the privacy of the life inside,” noted the jury. This 3,800-square-foot, three-level residence takes as its primary organizing element a stair that separates and defines the public spaces from the more private, and the master suite from the children’s bedrooms. Placed on the north side of the house to leave the living spaces open to the light and views, the stair, with its planes defined by wood veneered walls, interacts with these spaces while connecting them to each other. Tucked into a steep slope facing Lake Washington, this house jogs in the center to allow views from all living spaces. The architects created the structure’s simple exterior to blend with traditional neighborhood residences.

Wilsonville Water Treatment Plant
Wilsonville, Ore.
by The Miller|Hull Partnership
for City of Wilsonville/Tualatin Valley Water
Photo © Eckert & Eckert

“This public project transforms a secured water facility into a public amenity by landscaping parklands of natural meadow and stream behind a long, punctured concrete and brick garden wall that protects the facility,” is how the jury described this public-works facility. Its 800-foot-long north-south “garden wall” bisects the site into the secure water-purifying plant on one side and a public park and ponds on the other. The wall, essentially a series of connected building elevations expressing the public-works functions beyond, also maintains a constant elevation datum as the site drops to the riverbank. At the river end, the raw-water pump station pulls water up to begin the process. Each wall segment denotes a particular purification process such as ozone generation, filtration, and clear water storage. From the garden side, a path of interpretive panels and view portals look into and explain the piping, pumps, filters, and water of the operating functions of the facility. The public park includes a series of ponds that will enhance the local wildlife corridor along the western edge by providing natural eddies and indigenous plants.

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