AIA Orlando held its 2005 Awards for Design Excellence Presentation and Gala March 5 in honor of 10 projects recognized with Awards for Design Excellence. From a field of 33 entries, the jury selected three honor awards and seven awards of merit in categories that include government, institution, education, health-care, residential, interior, and industrial. Additionally, the chapter presented four awards to companies and individuals who have contributed significantly to the community and the profession.

Awards of Honor

Palmer Chiropractic College, Port Orange, Fla., by architect of record Farmer Baker Barrios Architects and design architect Herbert Lewis Kruse Blunck Architecture
This academic building represents the first phase of a new chiropractic college campus. In addition to the academic building, Phase One includes the complete site development of the 25-acre site, master planned for the addition of two buildings, parking for the entire campus, plus a significant water feature and landscaped central campus green. The 55,000-square-foot academic building serves as the primary teaching classroom and faculty office facility for the campus. In addition to traditional classrooms and offices, the facility also accommodates technique teaching labs, temporary administrative offices, a temporary learning-resource center, a computer lab, small group study rooms, and support space. The architects based their “Sarasota-style” expression of the buildings on maximizing daylight while protecting the interior from the intense heat of the Florida sun.
Photographer © Peter Aaron/Esto.

Seminole County Criminal Justice Center, Sanford, Fla., by the HKS-ACi Team: architect of record HKS Architects and design architect ACi Inc.
The design of the new Seminole County Criminal Justice Center provides 10 new courtrooms, with the ability to expand to 17. The architect based the building aesthetic on a Classic Federal style to represent strength, stability, dignity, and the values of law and order. Architectural pre-cast concrete panels simulating stone reinforce these overriding patriotic ideals. The massing and composition are organized around an east-facing central entry lobby and vertical core with flanking courtrooms north and south. The various buildings on the site take organizational cues from axial vistas, focal points, and the formal grounds; the justice center with its commanding front lawn tops the hierarchy.
Photo © Blake Marvin, HKS Architects.

H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center, Tampa, by architect of record HuntonBrady Architects and design architect NBBJ Associated Architects
This 387,000-square-foot addition to an existing cancer center and research institute includes research labs, outpatient clinics, a conference center, a 300-seat auditorium, and a 600-car garage. The architects strove to create flexible open labs and offer amenities that include an auditorium for scientific presentations, a faculty club, and a conference center. The design creates the bridge between the existing buildings, unifying the complex both physically and visually. To enable the research building to foster interaction between the scientists, its atrium space serves as a focal point for discourse and exchange of ideas. Additionally, the atrium space allows direct access to the conference spaces, lounges, a faculty club, and offices.
Photo © Randy Lovoy.

Awards of Merit

Hillsborough Community College—Brandon Campus, Tampa, by HuntonBrady Architects
The client requested a user-friendly student services facility that would improve both the services currently provided on the growing campus and their ability to recruit new students. The resulting 60,000-square-foot building is organized around a two-story, wedge-shaped clerestory atrium that bisects the building longitudinally. This atrium becomes an internal “main street” designed to generate a collegial setting facilitating collaboration and interaction among students, faculty, and staff. The atrium also acts as a retail mall, where student services are treated as stores. This allows for an environment that provides a one-stop, user-friendly student services facility.
Photo © Randy Lovoy.

El Paso County Courthouse Additions, Colorado Springs, Colo., by DLR Group, in association with Anderson Mason Dale
The new 187,000-square-foot addition brings sorely needed space to Colorado Springs’ county courthouse. At the heart of its program, the project calls for the construction of eight new criminal trial court rooms and one hearing room, with the necessary attending supporting spaces for jury deliberation, clerk of the court, and judges’ chambers. In addition, two floors having six courtrooms are to be built in shell form for future build-out. In terms of its architectural persona, the architects strove to create a building that would reflect the dignity and honor appropriate to a courthouse and be sympathetic to the existing courthouse complex as well as the fabric of downtown Colorado Springs.
Photo © DLR Group.

St. Joseph’s/Candler Cancer Care & Research Pavilion, Savannah, by HLM-Heery International Inc.
The vision for the 50,000-square-foot St. Joseph/Candler Cancer Care and Research Pavilion is that the care and treatment offered to patients affects a transformation. The concept for the architecture is an abstraction of the process of transcendence. The simple building mass represents the chrysalis: grounded; anchored to nature; compatible in form, material, and color to the surrounding context. The building then splits and peels away at the center, changing from solid masonry to translucent surfaces of glass. The emerging form rising from this fissure represents the new creature; its dramatic cantilevered roof canopy is composed of four tapered planes that abstract the forewings and hind wings of the butterfly. This striking roof announces arrival and visually connects the entry experience through the facility to the natural butterfly garden. The journey of healing begins inside the facility, where an internal rooftop garden projects outward.
Photo © Janine Otto and Ronok Nichols.

School District Transportation Operations and Maintenance Facility, Osceola County, Fla., by Architects Design Group
This facility, the center for the school districts bus transport system, is defined by service areas and parking requirements for 240 buses. The 62,000-square-foot building provides discrete functional activity zones that include administrative offices, bus driver assembly and support core, vehicle and equipment maintenance area, and a bus fueling and wash area. The building forms a simple, wedge-shaped horizontal bar oriented in response to the sun’s path for daylighting and to catch prevailing breezes to assist ventilation of the maintenance bays. “A utilitarian building type, typically relegated to the outskirts of the community is elevated to a loftier place in the architectural continuum, by exploiting the artistic potential of the building program,” architecture critic Diane Greer said this about the building.
Photo © Kevin Haas.

Domus Ecclesia, by Rick Dunn, AIA
The design process began with two main goals: to look critically at the current parti of most church buildings and find some main theological idea that might be a better vehicle for organizing a church. The main theological idea is the concept of the covenant relationship between God and His church. The covenants, starting with Adam and finally consummating in Christ, are about redemption. The covenants in relation to each other form a linear procession through redemptive history. However, they individually mark a series of reorientations of the hearts of God’s people and are carried out in the physical form through the church. As this procession moves into the sanctuary, one moves over water and through layers of enclosure: first concrete, then copper, then into a wooden vessel. The focus from within this wooden vessel is out over the stage with a fountain just behind it, which is the source for the water that was traversed upon entering the complex.
Photo © Rick Dunn, AIA.

DLR Group Orlando Studio, Orlando, by DLR Group Inc.
This project entails a 4,085-square-foot architecture office located on the fourth floor of a recently renovated, six-story, 1970s-era office building. The design parti centered on the notion of maintaining an open, studio space with room for flexibility in grouping project teams and accommodating future growth. Also needed was ample pinup space for project critique and discussion. The resulting architecture revolves around a single large work area bracketed on two sides with two bars; one contains a work/file/library area, and the other houses a row of semi-enclosed offices. The reception area, located in the corner of the studio at the intersection of these two bars, links via the main circulation path to the conference room. It is defined and activated by a series of brightly colored panels that mark the entrances to the offices and reconnect the interior design to the rhythm of the exterior fenestration pattern.
Photo © DLR Group.

House for a Sailor, by Kevin Ratigan, AIA, Architects Design Group
An “urban” professional with a passion for performance sailing required a master-bedroom addition plus renovation and re-establishment of site amenities to a neglected 1950s Florida Ranch house. The owner and architect agreed that the renovation should do more with less and carefully respect the original structure’s materials and construction systems. They decided that the finished project would connect the home to the environment and serve as a “haven and place of repose, connected to the neighborhood, yet sheltered from adjacent properties.” The architect also designed the space to be an allusion to sailing and the sea. Although the 1950s ranch house icon remains, the restoration respects the quality of existing finishes, while its new finishes evoke classic contemporary design.
Photo © Kevin Haas.

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