The American Institute of Architects (AIA) has selected the 2011 recipients of the Institute Honor Awards. In the USA the awards are the profession’s highest recognition of works that exemplify excellence in architecture, interior
architecture and urban design. The awards program seeks to "establish a standard
of excellent against which all architects can measure performance, and inform the public of the breadth and value of architecture practice."
Selected from over 700 total submissions, 27 recipients located throughout the world will be honored at the AIA 2011 National Convention and Design Exposition. The event will stage from 12 to 14 May 2011 in New Orleans, USA.
2011 Institute Honor Awards for Architecture
The jury for the 2011 Institute Honor Awards for Architecture includes: David Miller, FAIA, (chair) The Miller Hull Partnership, LLP; Ashley Clark, Assoc.
AIA, LandDesign Inc.; Curtis Fentress, FAIA, Fentress Architects; T. Gunny
Harboe, FAIA, Harboe Architect, PC; David Neuman, FAIA, University of Virginia;
Louis Pounders, FAIA,ANF Architects; Sarah Snodgrass, AIAS Representative,
University of Nevada- Las Vegas; Allison Williams, FAIA, Perkins & Will and Jennifer Yoos, AIA, VJAA.
AT&T Performing Arts Center Dee and Charles Wyly Theatre. Photo: Iwan Baan, © OMA
AT&T Performing Arts Center Dee and Charles Wyly Theatre; Dallas, Texas
Design Architect: REX|OMA,
Associate Architect: Kendall/Heaton Associates
The Wyly features two unique
innovations: an auditorium visible from street, enabled by the tall box-like
structure of the building, in which supporting services are stacked above and
below the auditorium, rather than encircling it as in a standard theater
configuration. Secondly, the auditorium itself is designed for maximum
flexibilty: stage, seating, balconies can be quickly reconfigured depending on
the needs of the performance on the night.
By positioning back-of-house and front-of-house facilities above and beneath the auditorium instead of encircling it, the 80,300-square-foot, 575-seat “theater machine” extends the technologies of the fly tower and stage into the auditorium
to provide an almost infinite variety of stage-audience configurations;
liberates the performance hall's perimeter to allow fantasy and reality to mix when and where desired; and allows for greater interaction between artistic and
administrative staff, fostering new internal collaborations.
Barnard College Diana Center; New York City
WEISS/MANFREDI Architecture/Landscape/Urbanism
The 98,000-square-foot multi-use building establishes an innovative nexus for
artistic, social, and intellectual life at the college. The facility brings
together spaces for art, architecture, theater, and art history, as well as
faculty offices, a dining room, and a café.
Rethinking the mixed-use building type, the Diana Center brings together the
college’s previously dispersed programs and constituencies by setting up visual juxtapositions that invite collaboration between disciplines.
Horizontal Skyscraper / Vanke Center; Shenzhen, China
Steven Holl Architects
The building hovers above the landscape, freeing it for public use and for a
unique scheme of ecosystem restoration. By lifting the building off the ground,
the project is both a building and a landscape, a delicate intertwining of
sophisticated engineering and the natural environment. The landscape scheme works to minimize run-off, erosion, and other types of environmental damage associated with development. Additionally, the project employs some of the most forward-thinking sustainable design strategies.
New Acropolis Museum; Athens, Greece
Bernard Tschumi Architects
Associate Architect: Michael Photiadis
The base of the museum floats on pilotis over the existing archeological
excavations, protecting the site with a network of columns. A glass ramp
overlooking the archeological excavations leads to the galleries in the middle,
in the form of a spectacular double-height room supported by tall columns. The
top, made up of the rectangular Parthenon Gallery arranged around an indoor court, rotates to orient the Frieze exactly as it was on the Parthenon centuries ago.
North Carolina Museum of Art; Raleigh, North Carolina
Thomas Phifer and Partners
The museum is, in essence, a single 65,000-square-foot room, separated by
partial height walls into galleries, none a discrete, fully enclosed room.
Overhead, hundreds of elliptical occuli bathe the interior in even,
full-spectrum daylight, modulated to filter out damaging rays. In this gently
luminous setting, the artwork takes on heightened vividness. Outside, matte
anodized aluminum panels that enclose the building continue the discourse with the landscape. From oblique vantage points on the exterior, underlying strips of polished stainless steel capture unexpected and scintillating reflections.
One Jackson Square; New York City
Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates, PC
This 35-unit luxury residential building, located in Manhattan’s Greenwich
Village is home to the highest concentration of early architecture in New York
City. The building volume steps down from 11 stories to seven stories, from
north to south, accommodating the zoning laws and mediating the varied scales of
the surrounding neighborhood. Undulating bands of glass identify individual
floors, creating a ribbon-like series of convexities and concavities along the
street wall.
The Ford Assembly Building; Richmond, California
Marcy Wong Donn Logan Architects
The project converted a crumbling historic icon into a model of urban
revitalization and sustainability. Now, Albert Kahn’s 1931 car factory for Henry Ford houses an acre-sized public event venue, restaurant/retail, and tenants including SunPower and Mountain Hardwear. The 500,000-squre-foot waterfront building was awe-inspiring even as a quake-ravaged, brick, steel and concrete ruin. Hence, the project design objective to reflect our current century led to the integration of modern architectural elements for today’s diverse building program while complementing and enhancing the edifice’s powerful forms.
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) Rooftop Garden; San Francisco, California
Jensen Architects / Jensen & Macy Architects
The SFMOMA’s rooftop garden is an open-air gallery defined by the intersection of sculpture, space and light. The entire back wall of the museum’s top floor is
removed, allowing a seamless connection from gallery to garden. A large
panoramic window at this new opening offers an elevated view to the garden,
presenting it like a landscape painting inside the gallery. A glazed long-span
bridge links the museum to a garden pavilion that in turn opens out to the
garden through large sliding glass panels.
U.S. Land Port of Entry; Warroad, Minnesota
Julie Snow Architects, Inc.
U.S. Land Port of Entry supports the mission-driven demands of Customs and
Border Protection (CBP), responsible for securing the nation’s borders and
promoting legal trade and travel. This 43,000-square-foot facility is composed of three separate enclosed areas linked together with a continuous canopy. The
main building houses the officer work area and holding cells, the secondary
building houses the vehicular inspection garages, laboratory space and firing
range, and the commercial building is used for unloading and inspecting
commercial vehicles.
University of Michigan Museum of Art; Ann Arbor, Michigan
Allied Works Architecture
The recent expansion and renovation of the 1908 beaux-arts building opens the museum to the campus and regional community by lightening the building envelope and permitting greater public access to common areas. The addition is organized
as three gallery wings formed by concrete, limestone, steel and glass that
radiate from a central atrium and define corresponding exterior rooms. These new landscapes engage the site and become the spaces of mediation with the surrounding context.
Detailed presentations of the awards recipients can be found here:
2011 Institute Honor Awards for Architecture
Awards will also be distributed in the following categories:
2011 Institute Honor Awards for Interior Architecture
2011 Institute Honor Award for Regional and Urban Design
Simultaneously announced:
2011 Twenty-five Year Award Bestowed on John Hancock Tower in Boston
Further Information:
AIA
The American Institute of Architects
1735 New York Ave., NW
Washington, DC 20006-5292
Tel.: +1 202-626-7300
Fax: +1 202-626-7547
eMail: infocentral@aia.org
web: www.aia.org
