The 2005 AIA Honor Awards for Interior Architecture projects range in scope from a boys’ club renovated over a five-year period and on a shoestring budget to an exclusive penthouse apartment. Seven of the 2005 interior architecture awards projects are located in the continental U.S., two are in London, one in Paris, and one in Ontario, Canada. Retail space and corporate offices received high design marks, as projects within that building type garnered six awards. The boys’ club, residential penthouse, plus a Jewish temple, university building, and university art museum round out this year’s list.

Ackerman International, London
Elliott + Associates Architects, for Ackerman McQueen
The architects strove to capture London as a place for this 1,800-square-foot advertising agency office. They focused on creating a space that is simultaneously very traditional and very Modern. The program required that the workstations and conference rooms feel like “one big coffee lounge,” and the resultant plan consisted of a “four corner” concept for workstations for acoustic and visual privacy. The conference rooms have transparent enclosures with big sliding glass doors to open or close the remaining and adjacent space. The space was designed to be changeable, mobile, and transparent, allowing lots of light to pass through. “The illusion and abstraction of London fog carries the project—the space has a coloration of a black and white photograph,” the jury remarked. “The architect is acutely aware of when to throw in a flicker of color. It’s a ghostly, moody, and melancholic space.”
Photo © Robert Shimer, Hedrich Blessing.

Boys’ Club of Sioux City, Sioux City, Iowa
Randy Brown Architects, for Boys’ Club of Sioux City
Originally built as an armory in the early 1900s, this building became home to the Boys’ Club in the 1950s. More recently, although more space was needed, budget required that most rooms and walls remain. While the location and size of rooms were predetermined, the architects were able to transform the spaces by the intervention of new architectural objects. Over a five-year construction period, spaces were stripped back to their original constructions: Old wood floors were found, ceiling grids were eliminated, and plaster ceilings reclaimed. When new materials were needed, tile, plaster, sheet metal, plywood, chain link, 2x4s, and oriented strandboard were chosen for durability. Storage rooms were cleaned out and transformed into a custom treehouse/play structure while other found space became the Teen Room. Additionally, the architects added 50 interior windows to previously isolated rooms to improve staff monitoring and visually connect the spaces. The jury pronounced this building “a labor of love—a true community project.”
Photo © Farshid Assassi.

Chanel, Paris
Peter Marino + Assoc. Architects with associate architect Vigneron Architects, for Chanel
The Chanel boutique on Rue Cambon in Paris is an expansion and redesign of Mademoiselle Coco Chanel’s original boutique beneath her legendary studio and apartments in Paris. Upon entering the store, one is immediately introduced to the strong graphic statement of the iconic Chanel tweed in the form of a hand-hammered, gold-leaf glass wall. Throughout the store, carbon-fiber panels with gold thread and poured-resin panels inset with diamond dust, continue the tweed theme to define and articulate the spaces on each level. Antique silk ribbons, the only remaining from the Coco Chanel material archive, are woven into the screens in the eveningwear section to create an ambience of the ultimate in luxury. A floating staircase links the original boutique space on axis to the expanded area in the rear and below, with a theatrical floor-to-ceiling video exposure of the ready-to-wear collection at the top of the stairs. “The sensibility of black and white mimics the tension between the building and the clothes,” the jury said. “Interwoven silk ribbons bring a museum quality to the materials. We love the quality of backlighting—it evokes Chanel.”
Photo © Vincent Knapp.

East End Temple, New York City
BKSK Architects LLP, for East End Temple
The new home of this temple formerly served as a residence built in 1883 by Richard Morris Hunt. Its façade and the front library room, all that remained reasonably intact, have been restored to their former elegance and adapted to the temple’s needs. The sanctuary was designed to embody many of the symbols of Jewish faith. Natural light as a traditional symbol of divine presence is brought into the space high over the ark. The shaping of the space, the flow of materials, and the presentation of the religious iconography highlight the temple’s emphasis on inclusiveness. The lectern is acacia wood, described in the Book of Exodus as the wood of the frames used in supporting the structure that was the original tabernacle. “The project is created in a 25-foot width, but with strategic planning it feels much more spatial . . . It’s like a piece of jewelry in its attention to detail and custom-designed elements,” said the jury. “The elements of faith are woven into the fabric of the interior.”
Photo Credit © Jonathan Wallen.

Elie Tahari Fashion Design Office & Warehouse, Millburn, N.J.
Voorsanger Architects PC, for Elie Tahari
The architects created the Elie Tahari Fashion Design Offices and warehouse complex from a renovated storage facility in suburban New Jersey. They brought light and landscape inside to the working staff by cutting into the roof structure to create two courtyards. The structural system was reinforced and the interior perimeter fitted with glass paneling, leaving the new spaces open to the sky and letting in natural light. The centrally positioned courtyards are accessible to the activities of the office and symmetrical to the entry axis. The edges of the garden are left largely transparent so that the natural elements can be experienced deep within the office space. “Within a context where looking out is less desirable, the project creates an interior life,” the jury remarked. “It takes a banal existing building type and with a few deft moves layers public space, courtyards, offices, and industrial space.”
Photo © Elizabeth Felicella.

Hyde Park Bank Building Hall, Chicago
Florian Architects PC, for Hyde Park Bank & Trust Co.
The historic Hyde Park Bank occupies the second floor of this Chicago neighborhood’s principal office building. The program called for restoring the grandeur of an historic banking hall while conveying a sense of security, continuity, and the bank’s importance to the community. The architects redesigned the structural supports for metal mesh screens, glass walls, and teller canopy, refining them to minimal sizes. They also raised the glass partitions off the floor to maintain airflow. Vertical surfaces of translucent glass shield expediting areas and diffuse light, while striated shrouds of composite wood and stainless steel grills shield rift-sawn oak work surfaces. The jury found the project to be graceful and respectful in that it doesn’t mimic the existing building. “It’s extraordinarily refined,” they said. “It extends the elegance of the space non-stylistically.”
Photo © Barbara Karant, Karant Associates Inc.

James Stewart Center for Mathematics, Hamilton, Ont.
Kuwabara Payne McKenna Blumberg Architects, for McMaster University
This project is an adaptive reuse of 1929 Hamilton Hall, one of the oldest buildings on the McMaster University campus. The architects’ objective was to create a facility that recognizes the interactive nature of mathematics with spaces that promote team-based study and research. They chose a highly abstract and Modern interior in stark opposition to the historic Collegiate Gothic exterior. The complete demolition of the dark, labyrinthine interior exposed the concrete post-and-beam construction, and existing stone-framed Gothic windows served as the organizing nuclei for each office. The offices are unified under a continuous ceiling plate that allows the existing concrete beam and slab to define the full spatial extents. “This is impressively progressive for an institutional environment,” the jury said. “The client’s aspirations have pushed forward the image of how a mathematics building is realized.”
Photo © Tom Arban Photography.

Jigsaw, Los Angeles
Pugh + Scarpa Architects, for Jon Hopp
For this film-editing facility, the architects transformed the interior of a rough 1940s bow-truss warehouse into an entirely surprising and inventive space. In the center of the space are two curvaceous volumes suspended over a shallow pool of water. To create the windows’ light diffusion required for the editors’ work inside the rooms, each glass wall was fabricated from ordinary materials: one is filled with Ping-Pong balls, another with acrylic beads. This same relationship between object and space can be seen at a larger scale throughout the project, where the residual or interstitial spaces among the objects and volumes in the warehouse become niches for informal encounters. The design attempts to create a series of balanced tensions, turning an office space into an inspiring playground. “An unusual way to create an office and a sculpture that transforms and enlivens the space,” the jury enthused. “The materiality is intriguing and inventive.” The jury also liked the experimentation and reinterpretation of materials: “A great party space!”
Photo © Marvin Rand.

l.a. Eyeworks Showroom, Los Angeles
Neil M. Denari Architects, for Gai Gheradi and Barbara McReynolds
The client’s demand for this 1,150-square-foot store arose from a unique relationship between the conventions of commercial retail space and the stability of architecture usually associated with institutional work. In working with the basic parameters of store design—such as the demand for transparency from the street and from the sales counter—the design shapes space and movement through a continuous suspended surface. The gaseous blue surface performs many functions: perforated ceiling plane, window display, bench, shelving unit, and sales counter. A group of furniture elements, designed by the architects, acts as a mediator of scale and movement. Finally, a wall of vacuum-formed panels, designed by the artist Jim Iserman, fills the entire west wall of the store. “The façade is lens-like—ocular and multi-faceted,” said the jury. ”It’s a great place to test eyewear because there is a lot to look at.” They also liked the hyperconnectivity of the surfaces and architectural elements.
Photo Credit © Benny Chan, Fotoworks.

Paul & Lulu Hilliard University Art Museum, Lafayette, La.
Eskew + Dumez + Ripple, for the University of Louisiana at Lafayette
Situated adjacent to the original 1967 University Art Museum, this new museum serves as a backdrop to the original. The 33,000-square-foot program includes lobby and public spaces, permanent collection and changing exhibit galleries, museum offices, archival storage, and art support spaces. The building’s glass façade hovers above visitors entering the museum, reflecting in its surface the existing building. Within the limited material palette designated for museum exhibition, floor materials serve to code a variety of uses: stone for public areas, wood for exhibition areas, carpet for bookstore and office uses, and concrete for service areas. A simple planning organization clearly differentiates art spaces from support spaces. “Absolutely fantastic! The juxtaposition of Modern steel and glass to historic plantation is incredibly well done,” the jury exclaimed.
Photo © Timothy Hursley.

Pavilion in the Sky, London
Peter Marino + Assoc. Architects, for an unnamed owner
Designed for a Modern art collector, this 4,800-square-foot residence occupies the top floor of a building along the Thames River, formerly the headquarters of the London Gas Company. The penthouse is a 65-foot by 65-foot square glass box with a shallow vaulted ceiling that rises from about 13 feet at the corners to 16 feet at the center. A shimmering cube of onyx surrounds the building’s core. From the center of the onyx core, a stone entry hall leads through Lalique crystal paneled doors and emerges to a landscape of sculptured forms that define the more private zones of the residence. An L-shaped plane of shark hide resting on a rosewood cube serves as the guest bedroom. A square reflecting pool is carved into the black wood floor located in the northeast corner, described by the architect as an “anti-object” reflecting the sky and the onyx walls. “On first glance, our reaction was ‘What? Wow!’” said the jury. “It’s sensationally over the top and fantastic. There is strangeness to the project as well as a lot of control . . . It’s gutsy.”
Photo © Fabrice Rambert.

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