AIA Tampa Bay Selects 2006 Design Award Winners

Summary: AIA Tampa Bay chose nine outstanding projects to receive the chapter’s 2006 Design Awards. These awards—which recognize excellence in architectural design by students, graduate architects, and registered architects from within the chapter’s seven-county region in west central Florida—were chosen from a field of 58 submissions. The 2006 jury members, all from The Boston Society of Architects, were: Nathalie Beaucais, Allston Development Group; Robert J. Taylor, AIA, Taylor & Burns Architects; Steve Brittan, Burt Hill; and Alec Anmahian, AIA, Anmahian Winton Architects.

H. Dean Rowe, FAIA, Award for Design Excellence

Project: The Carr Residence
Location: Tampa
Architect: Dennis M. Carr, AIA, as his own residence
The jury called the architect’s program “deceptively simple, yet actually very complex.” The 2,800-square-foot, three-bedroom, three-bathroom residence takes cues from the traditional subtropical location, creating what architect Dennis M. Carr likes to call “Tropical Modern.” Displaying the “perfect interpretation of the vernacular,” according to one juror, “the architect uses a minimalist development while utilizing the language of his surrounding.” Using a metal roof to reflect the sun, Carr incorporated the surrounding Floridian landscape in both aspects of design and functionality.

Honor Award for Architecture, Institutional

Project: Bowers-Whitley Career Center
Location: Tampa
Architect: Holmes Hepner & Associates Architects
This career center at a 600-student high school located in a high-crime area of the city serves to offer a clean education environment. “Working with exterior spaces and solid masses, this project design was done on an extremely frugal budget,” said architect Peter Hepner, AIA. The jury noted “there was a huge amount of site work and architectural space-making,” and the architect accomplished a lot “using very meager means and simple materials. It’s artfully deployed using a lot of restraint.”

Project: Northwest Recreation Center
Location: St. Petersburg, Fla.
Architect: Wannemacher Russell Architects
Located between four high-traffic lanes, this recreation center sits on 33 acres of park in St. Petersburg. “You can see the architectural language throughout the building . . . it seems to evoke a nice combination of program and landscape while the materials and the relationship of the landscape seem to have consistency,” said one juror. The architect said she tried to keep “the program simple and straightforward to create a design that would be a framework allowing the activities and environmental conditions to speak for themselves.“ The jury saw the concept as “a plan with a clear station of space and light moving throughout the building . . . if you look at the elevation there is a direct extent where all the expression is either walls or glass . . . always pure to further the idea of bringing nature in and space out.”

Honor Award for Architecture, Historic Renovation

Project: Hillsborough High School
Location: Hillsborough, Fla.
Architect: Wilder Architecture Inc.
Architect Eric Rice says this project was a “matter of peeling back years of renovations while still maintaining the historical fabric.” A Gothic Revival building completed in 1928, the school underwent major renovations in the 1970s. “The goal of renovation is the work of the architect and client to restore what was once a good building that has been damaged or disfigured in the past. That in itself is an honorable thing for an architect to do,” said one jury member. The preservation “doesn't show the architect’s hands as much as the original building and respects the integrity of the new Gothic building.” The jury also commends the Hillsborough County School Board “for their ability to devote resources and time to this building.”

Honor Award for Architecture, Student Category

Project: West Tampa Women’s Center (unbuilt)
Location: West Tampa
Designer: Derek Jensen, USF School of Architecture and Community Design
This unbuilt project, a center for women in the Old West Tampa Cigar District, impressed the jury by its ability to “look at the urban problems and the integration of the urban issues.” The design plan separates each space in a shop-like manner to make the shelter less imposing and more in tune with the neighborhood. “Through breaking down the spaces, he carefully links the content and program,” comments a juror. Designer Jensen says he wanted the design to “extend the urban fabric of the historic neighborhood while developing a sense of home and security for the women.”

Merit Awards for Architecture

Project: Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport Terminal Concourse A
Location: Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
Architect: Gresham Smith Partners
Located in Broward County, Fort Lauderdale, this unbuilt, five-gate concourse will feature hold-room areas, concessions, and a circulation connector. The architects “tried to create a technical piece evoking flight but not too literal,” they said.

Project: Bayshore 1307
Location: Hyde Park, Fla.
Architect: Urban Studio Architects
Located in the heart of Historic Hyde Park, this 3,600-square-foot, two-bedroom residence and studio was inspired by the works of Pierre Koenig and reflects the mid-century housing movement while accommodating the demands of the design. Designer Mark Cox says the Architectural Review Board finally recognized that “Modern architecture must be received as historical.”

Project: Solstice House
Location: Sarasota, Fla.
Architect: Haflants + Pichette
This single-family residence is located in Sarasota at the mouth of a creek as it opens to the bay. This project design centers on the client’s call for an open rooftop for entertaining. Architect Michael Halfants, AIA, says it offers an example of “good architecture for the client, not in spite of them.”

Project: Spertus Institute of Judaica
Location: Chicago
Architect: Jason Jensen
This experimental project on historic Michigan Avenue along the lakefront of downtown Chicago pulls in light, creating a candle-like flickering effect that is the centerpiece of the building’s program. Jensen uses this effect to “reflect the importance of light both symbolically and physically to the Jewish tradition and people.”