The 2005 AIA Honor Awards for Architecture recipients indeed present an impressive and diverse body of work. The 13 selected projects include both up-and-coming and well-known architects and firms. Undeniably, civic structures reigned supreme this year, with 6 projects in that realm awarded. A sampling of building types reveals houses, churches, an auditorium, a barn/stable, museum, conservatory, sauna, and library. Eleven projects are in the U.S., one is in Italy, and one in Canada. Vancouver-based Patkau Architects Inc. captured two Honor Awards for Architecture this year.

Agosta House, San Juan Island, Wash.
Patkau Architects, Inc., for William and Karin Agosta
This private residence of 2,775 square feet was built for a couple relocating from Manhattan to a small rural island off the Pacific coast. The 43-acre property is largely populated by second-growth Douglas Fir, with the house sited on a grassy meadow overlooking British Columbia’s gulf islands. The house, which includes living space, an office, and a garden enclosed within a 12-foot-high fence, is clad in light-gauge galvanized sheet steel to protect it from weather extremes and wildfire. “There is a joy to this house that is remarkable,” stated the jury. “Its spirit is supportive of the landscape but has its own integrity and even a dynamic presence. . . . There is clarity in the use of materials, from the horizontal siding to the metal wall that faces the prevailing winds to the wood finishes that help to define the interiors and frame views into the landscape. The craftsmanship is of the highest standard.”
Photo © James Dow.

Conservatory of Flowers, San Francisco
Architectural Resource Group, for San Francisco Recreation & Park Department
Originally completed in 1878, the Conservatory of Flowers is one of San Francisco’s most noteworthy historic and cultural resources. Having survived the 1906 earthquake, the conservatory is the oldest building in Golden Gate Park and the oldest public greenhouse in the state. In December 1995 a series of storms severely damaged the conservatory, forcing its closure. Preservation of the structure included the complete integration of preservation architecture, planning, and conservation work, as well as the complex technical planning and agency review process. With new interpretative exhibits and enhanced visitor accommodations, the facility is well-equipped to continue serving the public into the next century. “A gift to the City of San Francisco and a beautiful example of a pavilion in a park that has been lovingly restored,” noted the jury. “We commend the major commitment to materials conservation, authenticity of construction technology of the original architect, and seamless integration of new technology to support the ongoing functions. It’s a glowing icon for the park at night, ornate celebration of greenhouse at day, with wonder for the visitor and horticulturalist alike.”
Photo © David Wakely Photography.

Contemporaine at 516 North Wells, Chicago
Perkins + Will, for CMK Development
The 28-unit condominium building contains a 4-story base for retail and parking and an 11-story residential tower. Located in Chicago’s River North, an area of mid-rise warehouses turned into residential lofts and towers, the Contemporaine successfully mediates the varying scale and context with its sculptural tower and the articulation of its functioning parts. The jury liked that the building “moves beyond Miesian forms to create a compositional expression viewed from every side. The simple gesture of separating the base, meeting the contextual demands of the pedestrian street is effective in scale and interest. The expressed concrete, the pinwheel balconies, and the stepped terraces give a wonderful precedent in a sea of ‘modern lofts’ and neo-Georgian apartment buildings. Expressing the garage function is refreshing and honest. It works, and shows there is a different way.”
Photo © Steinkamp/Ballogg Photography.

Emerson Sauna, Duluth, Minn.
Salmela Architect, for Peter and Cindy Emerson
On Finnish immigrants’ pioneer farmsteads, the sauna was often the first building erected. Used not only for bathing but also for social purposes, the sauna was frequently the place for childbirth, burial preparation, and neighbor gatherings. The intent of the clients, reared in Northern Minnesota’s Scandinavian culture, was to revive the social aspect of the sauna. The brick interior provides ample radiant heat and the cooling porch allows breezes off the lake to pass through while providing privacy. Structurally, the triangular tube is constructed from standard wood frame members in a very exact but simple assembly; it floats and cantilevers in great delicacy. The jury appreciated the “simple geometric form, well integrated among trees with an opposition of forms that are compelling to the eye.” They also praised the sauna’s “simple, spare, elegant use of natural materials,” calling it “an architecture that appeals to all of the senses. A very quiet building, juxtaposed so carefully and so simply.”
Photo © Peter Bastianelli Kerze.

Gannett/USA Today Headquarters, McLean, Va.
Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates PC, for Gannett Company
To consolidate facilities, promote communal interaction between two separate corporate identities, and improve flexibility and growth capabilities, USA Today and parent company Gannett relocated to this suburban Washington, D.C. location. The project consists of two linear buildings on a common base, with each structure spiraling up to enclose an exterior “town square.” The single-loaded circulation system, expressed on the courtyard side of the buildings above, activates this inner space, creating a sense of community at the heart of the complex. “This is the company to work for if the quality of your workplace is key,” noted the jury. “In contrast to downsizing workstations, mean spaces with tight floor-to-floor, low-cost lighting, and deep floor plates that provide few views or daylight for most, this building provides individual, generous workstations in high-ceiling spaces with great views and daylight.” In addition, the jury appreciated the “commitment to preserving the site as amenity and storm water management” and the effect of creating an office building that houses 1,600 employees on a human scale.
Photo © Timothy Hursley/The Arkansas Office.

Hill Auditorium, Ann Arbor
Preservation Architect Quinn Evans|Architects, with Architect of Record Albert Kahn Associates, for the University of Michigan
Designed by Albert Kahn and completed in 1913, Hill Auditorium is a masterpiece of Classic Revival architecture. The size and unique parabolic shape of the hall created one of the most acoustically significant concert halls in America. To transform this historic gem into a modern performance venue yet retain its original character, the team restored historic features, increased patron comfort and accessibility, performed building code compliance upgrades, and replaced and modernized the building’s mechanical and electrical systems. The jury felt that this was “a sensitive restoration of an iconic Albert Kahn building. A tremendous level of research and study of the history of the building and its evolution over time brought it back to its original glory and intentions. The most difficult aspect of the project was the resolution of the code, infrastructure, and programmatic improvements in a mostly invisible way, allowing the user/audience to marvel and appreciate an extraordinary space.”
Photo © Balthazar Korab.

Holy Rosary Catholic Church Complex, St. Amant, La.
Trahan Architects APAC, for Holy Rosary Catholic Church
The master plan of this rural campus creates a strong sense of place for all functions of the parish, drawing a distinction between the program’s sacred and secular components. Secular components of the campus take form as edge buildings framing a courtyard where the oratory is located. Position, formal purity, and height reflect the importance of the spiritual program and serve to distinguish the chapel from its surroundings. Rotation of the chapel further underscores the distinct orientation of secular and sacred lives. The jury appreciated: “The wonder of layered modern forms interlaced with nature and light and simplicity of details. The chapel within the chapel creates an amazing light, figurative with religious meaning. It is extremely minimalist, letting light touch the materiality of concrete to create a perfect place of meditation. There is a mystery to the light—an interstitial space you do not understand with a rotated geometry leaving one with unexpected experience: light without source.”
Photo © Timothy Hursley/The Arkansas Office.

Jubilee Church, Rome
Richard Meier & Partners Architects, LLP, for Opera Romana, la Preservazione delle fede e la Provvista di Nuove Chiese in Roma
This church was conceived as a new center for an isolated housing quarter outside central Rome. The triangular site is thrice articulated: dividing the sacred realm to the south from the secular precinct to the north; separating the approach on foot from the housing to the east; and separating the approach on foot from the parking lot to the west. The paved sagrato to the east of the church extends into the heart of the housing complex and provides a plaza for public assembly. Christian symbolism is revealed throughout the complex. The three concrete shells that, with the spine-wall, make the body of the nave imply the Holy Trinity. The pool reflects the role of water in Baptism. The materials in the portico allude to the body of Christ’s church while referencing the fabric of the adjacent residential area. “A building with beauty from every side,” noted the jury, and “a true focus for the neighborhood. The church reveals spectacular daylight—dappled, dynamic, kinetic, openness in spirit, yet a containment of the eye. The quality of the light is breathtaking.”
Photo © Scott Frances/ESTO Photographics.

Mill City Museum, Minneapolis
Meyer, Scherer & Rockcastle, Ltd., for Minnesota Historical Society
Originally designed by Austrian engineer William de la Barre, the former home of General Mills and Betty Crocker was once the “world’s largest” flour mill. Declared a National Historic Landmark in the 1980s yet vacant since 1965, the building was gutted by fire in 1991 leaving an eight-story high, block-long shell filled with debris. Located within the burned-out walls of the mill complex, the Mill City Museum focuses on the stories of grain farming and trading, water power, the mill building, flour milling, food product development, railroading, and the related stories of the workers, the labor movement, and immigrants. The jury called the new museum “A gutsy, crystalline, glowing courtyard for a reemerging waterfront district that attracts young and old and has stimulated adjacent development. A complex and intriguing social and regional story that reveals itself as the visitor progresses through the spaces, it brings history alive and the importance of the St. Anthony Falls through didactic exhibits that interact with the building itself.”
Photo © Assassi Productions.

Mountain Tree House, Dillard, Ga.
Mack Scogin Merrill Elam Architects, for an anonymous client
The arrival of grandchildren prompted the owners to convert their North Georgia garage/potting shed into a combination playroom, guest room, bamboo deck, and garage. The resulting structure is a juxtaposition of light and heavy, open and enclosed. The bedroom above is cantilevered over the work-yard, open and airy in contrast to the concrete garage below. The bathroom is solid and clad in steel, with walls that swing wide open for outdoor showers and spring cleaning. The bamboo, potted in planters on the ground, reaches up through narrow slots in the deck above creating an ideal retreat to relax and appreciate nature. “The composition of forms is distinctive,” noted the jury. “In a very small dwelling it offers many experiences, indoors and outdoors, vistas and contained views. The experience of the deck is so beautiful, a deck that wraps a new bamboo forest, capturing nature in the house.” The jury deemed it a “very special capturing of the landscape in Georgia, a beautiful viewing platform, and a subtle addition in glimpses of views of those walking through the forest at the foothills of the Smoky Mountains.”
Photo © Timothy Hursley/The Arkansas Office.

Seattle Central Library, Seattle
OMA/LMN—A Joint Venture, for The Seattle Public Library
Unlike traditional libraries, Seattle Central Library is organized into spatial compartments that are dedicated to and equipped for specific duties. Each platform is a programmatic cluster that is architecturally defined and equipped for maximum performance. The spaces between the platforms function as trading floors where librarians inform and stimulate. The library’s unique “book spiral” addresses the ongoing problem of subject classification. For example, in 1920 the library had no classification for computer science, but by the early 1990s the section had exploded. Using the Dewey Decimal System, the architects arranged the collection in a continuous ribbon—running from “000” to “999”—the subjects form a coexistence that approaches the organic. Each evolves relative to the others, occupying more or less space on the ribbon, but never forcing a rupture. The jury praised it as the “antithesis of library as a vault for books, accessible to only a few . . . an exciting, vital, and dynamic place to be that attracts all generations back to the library. [It] reaches out and is open and direct about its function. It imagines the future of technology for its lifetime.”
Photo © Philippe Ruault.

Shaw House, Vancouver
Patkau Architects, Inc., for John Shaw
Overlooking English Bay, this private residence is organized simply, with living spaces on grade, private spaces above grade, and a music room below grade. The narrow dimensions of the site required placement of the lap pool above grade, along the west side of the house. Small spaces are enlarged by generous ceiling heights, while the location of the lap pool brings both daylight and reflected light deep into the central areas. The jury called this “an amazing richness of space and program in a very constrained site. The water is the thematic strain that ties the house together with spectacular views over Vancouver. The elevation of the pool above creates a magical light throughout the entry and lower space, even reflecting light on ceilings and walls above. The jury also praised the “amazing construction detailing with shadow grooves and the assembly of elements like a Mondrian painting.”
Photo © Paul Warchol.

Somis Hay Barn, Somis, Calif.
SPF:a, for Steven Sharpe
According to Leonard Koren, author of Wabi-Sabi: for Artists, Designers, Poets & Philosophers (Stone Bridge Press, 1994), “Wabi-sabi is the quintessential Japanese aesthetic. It is a beauty of things imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete. It is a beauty of things modest and humble. It is a beauty of things unconventional.” Guided by the dual/dueling philosophies of Modernism and wabi-sabi, the architect created this hay barn and stable. Contrast and duality mark every aspect of this project. The barn itself is a 12-foot x 12-foot structural steel grid—solid, permanent, Modern, sleek, and unchanging. Hay is used as cladding to buffer the wind and insulate. The stable is earthy and constantly changing: hay changes odor, bales are used for bedding and feed, with horses sometimes eating hay right off the building. The jury called this, “Visually quiet with simplicity of form with a constantly changing exterior. The architect’s ingenious solution to the hay storage provides a major experience for the architecture. The barn is in harmony with its surroundings as well as the creatures that inhabit it. This is a refreshing reinterpretation of a traditional building type, rarely touched by architects today.”
Photo © John Linden.

—Heather Livingston

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