Mixing design and politics, AIA Pennsylvania honored its 2005 Design Awards winners April 12 in a hearing room in the commonwealth’s Capitol Complex. In the week prior to the ceremony, the component featured many of the entries in an exhibit in the Capitol Rotunda for Pennsylvania visitors and state lawmakers to enjoy. Edward Feiner, FAIA, director of office operations for the Washington, D.C., office of Skidmore Owings and Merrill and former chief architect of the General Services Administration’s Public Building Service, chaired the awards program. Shalom Baranes, FAIA; Alfred Koetter, FAIA, RIBA; and Karen Van Lengen, AIA, joined Feiner on the jury. Feiner and Mary Werner DeNadai, FAIA, chair of the design awards program, presented awards in two categories: Honor Awards for projects that exemplify the highest design quality and Citations of Merit Awards to reward a particular design or aspect of a submitted project.

Honor Awards

Pierson College Renovation and Addition, Yale University, New Haven, by KieranTimberlake Associates LLP, Architects
Pierson College, with its Georgian brick and stone walls and slate roofs, was designed by James Gamble Rogers in 1930 and forms the western edge of Yale’s undergraduate residential campus. The goals of this project included enhancing public spaces, such as dining services and student activity areas, maximizing bed space while decreasing bedroom density, life-cycle renovations, utility upgrades, and compliance with life-safety codes and accessibility regulations. The architects extended the existing site circulation to provide a new landscaped walkway and courtyard and a new 11,500-square-foot, three-story addition for student housing and the university theater. The jury admired the restoration of the interior historic spaces. Photo © Barry Halkin Photography.

The Liberty Bell Center, Independence Park, Philadelphia, by Bohlin Cywinski Jackson Architects, for the National Park Service
The $11-million Liberty Bell Center opened in October 2003 as a new and larger home for the Liberty Bell and an exciting and authentic visitor experience. The building provides an urban edge along Sixth Street to the west and a cornerstone to the Mall. Its massing and humanly scaled proportions make it a fitting companion to Independence Hall and the park. The Bell and its history are presented through three architectural elements: a covered outdoor interpretive area, an elongated rectilinear exhibit hall, and a tapered cubic volume housing the Bell chamber. Knitted together by a skeletal structure of metal columns, beams, and trellis armatures, the park, the building, and the exhibit form a seamless and unified whole. The jury liked the integration of the building into its setting and the Bell’s glass enclosure, which allows viewing from both the building interior and exterior. Photo by Nic Lehoux Photography Ltd, Esto/Peter Aaron, and Paul Warchol.

Apple Store Ginza, Tokyo, by Bohlin Cywinski Jackson Architects
This project involved the renovation of the façade of an existing office building in the busy Ginza shopping district. The façade uses bead-blasted stainless steel panels at the first three levels. The remaining five floors use an open-jointed glass rain-screen system in front of floor-to-ceiling sliding glass doors. This double skin employs ceramic-fritted, laminated glass panels with a special interlayer, creating an external curtain that provides thermal protection to the internal second skin. Gaps at the bottom and top of the glass curtain allow natural air circulation in the double-skin cavity, and the glass functions as an acoustical and weather barrier for the inner façade. The Ginza store has five floors open to the public, requiring a vertical circulation scheme that features all-glass elevators. The jury admired the constraint and simplicity of this building, with its strong opaque presence during the day and a layered quality at night.
Photo © Koji Okumura.

The Financial Center, Milford, Pa., by Bohlin Cywinski Jackson Architect, for Joseph Biondo
Located on a seven-acre wooded site at the edge of a forested ravine, this 10,000-square-foot building sits back from the main road and beneath the forest canopy. An existing stone wall runs the length of the site and defines the approach to the building. The building has its design roots in the California “Case Study Houses.” The exposed steel structure is organized on two circulation axes, with the glazed entrance positioned at the intersection. The first axis is 275 feet long and extends from the entry through the open and private offices, culminating in the employee lounge and deck. The deck has views through the forest to the Delaware River Valley. A brick wall defines the west edge of this axis. A cross axis ties together the public spaces. Terraces and cantilevered porches extend interior spaces into the forest. The jury liked the way that this building works in the natural environment and the way this delicate building barely touches its site—like a “ballerina on its toes in the landscape.”
Photo © Nic Lehoux Photography Ltd, Paul Warchol Photography Inc.

Citations of Merit

Merck Research Laboratories, Boston, by Kling Architects
This 614,000-square-foot, 12-story research laboratory tower with six below-grade parking levels resides in a highly active educational, cultural, and historical section of Boston. The architects used materials and color so that the building is not identified with the surrounding institutions but, instead, coupled with many other aspects of design, presents itself uniquely. The program consists of chemistry, biology, and pharmacology labs, as well as offices, meeting areas, a cafeteria, auditorium, and library. Daylight was a fundamental driver. The west wall reflects the introspective nature of research with its strip windows and larger spandrel. Offices on the east wall consist of clear-vision glass and a shadow-box spandrel of silk-screened glass with a reflective back-up panel. A sloping 12-foot ceiling and clerestory window allow light into the interior offices. Different kinds of glass and depths of the wall give the building a sense of three-dimensionality. The jury found this laboratory building’s transparency to be its strength. Photo © Chris Barnes, Paul Warchol.

Hillside House, Pittsburgh, by Mary Cerrone, AIA, & Kevin Wagstaff, AIA Architects
In theory, the architects’ 1950s two-bedroom ranch had great views of Pittsburgh’s picturesque East End and the hills beyond. In reality, however, a windowless brick wall and fireplace stood between a small living room and the dramatic view. In theory, the backyard was sizeable, level, and surrounded by trees. In reality, it was paved end-to-end with concrete, except for the kidney-shaped pool. The architects tore off the roof and most walls down to the foundation and expanded the living space to take advantage of the views, its unrealized garden room, and its potential for great light from three exposures. The main living space easily accommodates the daily needs of a young family and is a dramatic space to entertain. The jury admired the transformation of an undistinguished house in a tight, but elegant scheme and appreciated the difficulty of this project. Photo © Alexander Denmarsh.

Cabin on a Pond in Maine, by Perfido Weiskopf Architect
Although unbuilt, this design achieves a remarkable elegance in its simplicity, integrity, and integration of the structure and how the space is planned. The site is a heavily wooded low-lying property on an existing footpath on a pond in Maine. The client, a couple with college-age children, requested a three-season cabin for their own use, with accommodations for short-term guests. The first floor has been raised five feet above grade due to the low site and to improve the view. The design celebrates the procession from road to parking area, through the house, out to the deck, and down the ramp to a small beach. The building’s form is understated in keeping with the tradition of rustic cabins on ponds. Materials are ordinary and readily available. There are four primary components to the house: the anchoring cast-in-place concrete foundation, the exposed wood frame structure, the sheltering galvalume roof, and the thin skin of glazing and siding. The jury had a great deal of affection for this project and especially liked its successful relationship to the ground, which implies that the structure could be moved from place to place.
Renderings by Kevin Wagstaff, AIA.

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