Recognizing its remarkable contribution to design that enhances the quality of life and community identity, the American Architectural Foundation selected the U.S. General Services Administration Public Buildings Service (GSA PBS) as the 2004 recipient of the AAF Keystone Award.

Especially through its Design and Construction Excellence programs, GSA has shown its commitment to fostering public involvement in the design process. Presentation of the award is planned for March 3, 2004, at the AAF Accent on Architecture Gala to be held at the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C. Representing GSA will be PBS Administrator F. Joseph Moravec and former PBS Administrator Robert A. Peck, Hon. AIA. Also to be recognized at the ceremony will be GSA Chief Architect Edward A. Feiner, FAIA. Although the Keystone Award itself is not given to design professionals, all three men will be honored because of their key roles in the success of the GSA Design and Construction Excellence programs, explained AAF President/CEO Ronald E. Bogle.

The AAF created the Keystone Award in 1998 as part of its mission to educate the public on how excellent design enhances people’s lives by improving the places they live, pray, work, and play. The 501(c)(3) educational organization is governed by an independent board of regents that consists of public, corporate, philanthropic, and professional leaders. A committee of the AAF Board of Regents considers the Keystone Award nominations each year and reserves the right to defer an award in any year if it determines there is no suitable nomination.

Past recipients of the award include the Honorable Richard M. Daley, mayor of Chicago; Rick Lowe, founding director of Project Row Houses, Houston; and the Honorable Joseph P. Riley Jr., mayor of Charleston, S.C.

Exemplary merits
of the PBS
In its role as landlord to the civilian U.S. federal government, the GSA PBS has set its vision on being the best real estate organization in the world, providing a superior workplace for the federal worker, and delivering superior value to the American taxpayer, stated the nomination. With a total inventory of more than 330 million square feet of workspace, the GSA PBS supports a million federal employees in 2,000 American communities. This comprises more than 1,600 government-owned buildings, or approximately 55 percent of GSA’s total inventory. The remaining 45 percent is in privately owned, leased facilities. Among the facilities GSA maintains are more than 100 childcare centers.

Through its internationally recognized Design and Construction Excellence programs, PBS engages the best private-sector architects, construction managers, and engineers to design and build award-winning courthouses, border stations, federal office buildings, laboratories, and data-processing centers. Further, it works to restore and maintain the vitality of communities where GSA has a presence.
“Where we build, we usually generate a lot of economic growth,” Feiner said in the December AIA/J AIA Journal of Architecture. “We just unveiled the new federal courthouse proposed for Buffalo, designed by Kohn Pedersen Fox, and the positive response from the community and the media has been remarkable. Commitment to the downtowns is one of the most important aspects of avoiding the disposable society.”

Design excellence includes streamlined selection
GSA established the Design Excellence Program in 1994 to change the course of public architecture in the federal government. Through collaborative partnerships, GSA is implementing the goals of the 1962 Guiding Principles for Federal Architecture:

• Producing facilities that reflect the dignity, enterprise, vigor, and stability of the federal government and emphasizing designs that embody the finest contemporary architectural thought
• Avoiding an official style
• Incorporating the work of living artists in public buildings.

In this effort, each building is to be both an individual expression of design excellence and part of a larger body of work representing the best that America’s designers and artists can leave to later generations.

To find the best, most creative talent, the Design Excellence Program has simplified the way GSA selects architects and engineers for construction and major renovation projects and opened up opportunities for emerging talent, small, women-owned, and disadvantaged businesses. The program recognizes and celebrates the creativity and diversity of the American people.

The first phase of the Design Excellence Program architect/engineer selection is based on the evaluation of portfolios. Only later do firms have to establish complete design teams and submit more extensive government forms. Selection may also include a design competition. Together, these strategies keep the emphasis on quality and minimize red tape. Included in the selection process is design review by distinguished private-sector architects, engineers, designers, public-arts administrators, design educators, and critics whom the PBS commissioner appoints to the 70- to 80-person GSA National Register of Peer Professionals.

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