AIANYS 2015 Design and Excelsior Awards

AIANYS Design Awards

+ Excelsior Awards for public architecture

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he American Institute of Architects New York State has a long history of showcasing the extraordinary work of New York architects. Instituted in 1968, the Design Award program celebrates, honors and promotes excellence in design by New York State Architects for their exemplary work, creativity and to enhance public interest in architecture.

The 2015 Design Awards Jury was composed of Professor Jules Chiavaroli, AIA, Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, NY; Jules Dingle, AIA, Principal, DIGSAU, Philadelphia, PA; Merilee Meacock, AIA, Partner, KSS Architects, Princeton, NJ; Steven Imrich, AIA, Principal, Cambridge Seven Associates, Cambridge, MA; Christopher Spencer, Planning Director, City of Albany Development and Planning, Albany, NY. The recipients were honored at a reception held on the evening of Saturday, October 24, 2015 in Saratoga, NY. In 2014, AIANYS, in conjunction with the New York State University Construction Fund, Office of General Services, Dormitory Authority and Education Department, expanded the awards programs to include the Excelsior Awards for publically funded projects in New York. The Excelsior Award programs showcases these remarkable projects built in the public eye, working within strict budgets and timetables.

On the cover: Henderson-Hopkins School Baltimore, Maryland Rogers Partners, New York, New York Photo Credit: Albert Vecerka/ESTO

The 2015 Excelsior Awards jury was composed of Professor Patrick Quinn, FAIA, Chair; Mr. James D’Alosio, PE, Klepper Hahn & Hyatt; Mr. James Jamieson, RA, NYS Office of General Services; Mr. Stephen Reilly, AIA, Lacey Thaler Reilly Wilson Architecture & Preservation, LLP; and Ms. Jeanine Thompson, RLA, JM Thompson Landscape Architecture, PPLC. The winners were honored at a reception held on the evening of Monday, April 27, 2015 in Albany, NY. Thank you to all those who submitted their spectacular and imaginative work, and congratulations to the 2015 recipients.

Also, thank you to the assembly of jurors for their hard work and deliberation of the many praiseworthy submissions.

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Thank you

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AIANYS 2015 Design Awards Jury Jury Chair: Professor Jules Chiavaroli, AIA Rochester Institute of Technology Rochester, NY Jury Members: Jules Dingle, AIA Principal, DIGSAU Philadelphia, PA Merilee Meacock, AIA Partner, KSS Architects Princeton, NJ Steven Imrich, AIA Principal, Cambridge Seven Associates Cambridge, MA Christopher Spencer, Planning Director City of Albany Development and Planning Albany, NY

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Institutional

Best in New York State and Award of Excellence

Henderson-Hopkins School Baltimore, Maryland Rogers Partners New York, New York Photo Credit: Albert Vecerka/ESTO

The Elmer A. Henderson: A Johns Hopkins Partnership School and the Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Early Childhood Center, together called Henderson-Hopkins, is the first new Baltimore public school built in over 20 years. Envisioned to catalyze the revitalization of East Baltimore, the project integrates innovative educational facilities with community and recreational resources and reflects the neighborhood’s urban fabric.

The campus is organized into five Houses which visually connect to each other, encouraging children to aspire to their future.

Each House includes traditional classrooms and flex spaces for multi-modal instruction and individualized learning, as well as a Commons: a large, luminous volume used for flexible learning and communal lunch and the connector to an exterior Learning Terrace. The interior spaces are modular and adaptable to any type of pedagogical program and conform to students’ varying learning abilities, habits and ages. Windows everywhere provide optimal sunlight in every building on campus. International precedents were researched to design these traditional and non-traditional learning spaces that accommodate multiple and spontaneous activities.

The project’s developers, East Baltimore Development, Inc. (EBDI) are a non-profit organization established by community, government, institutional and philanthropic partners, built the school as part of broader efforts to revitalize greater Middle East Baltimore. To promote urban regeneration, in addition to the school and early childcare facilities, the campus incorporates a family health center, a library, an auditorium, and a gym, as shared resources with residents and businesses in the community.

Jury Comments: The Henderson-Hopkins School demonstrates a transformational and optimistic project to us. Unusual care seemed to be taken in planning the wonderful integration into an urban fabric.

The thoughtfulness of massing, site patterns, materials and program elements seem to elevate the project as an outstanding citizen in a previously disadvantaged urban context.

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Adaptive Reuse/Historic Preservation

Award of Excellence

SculptureCenter Renovation & Expansion Long Island City, New York Andrew Berman Architect New York, New York Photo Credit: Michael Moran/OTTO

The design of the new 2,000 square foot addition to the museum’s original structure honors and compliments the robust steel and brick structure of the existing building, a former trolley repair shop. Built in 1908, the original building was purchased by SculptureCenter in 2001 and renovated by Maya Lin with the understanding a later expansion would be necessary to fully meet the institution’s needs.

A series of steel panels form the building’s new facade, addresses the SculptureCenter’s need for a better and more public entrance to the galleries. The new building contains an entry lobby, a ticketing area, a bookshop, a coatroom, restroom facilities, and various gallery spaces. In addition to increasing the SculptureCenter’s programming space by 25 percent, the new structure also provides ADA access via a new elevator and new egress stairs.

Jury Comments: A light touch with measured and strategic interventions is evident in the Sculpture Center renovation. It has a nicely organized plan with details such as the nicely done lintel which show complementarity between the materiality of the addition and the existing structure.

Citation for Design

Cowles Hall Restoration Elmira, New York QPK Design Architecture Syracuse, New York Photo Credit: Revette Studio, Inc.

Cowles Hall is Elmira College’s foundational landmark building, recognized on the National Register of Historic Buildings, where the 1855 building originally housed the entire campus of classrooms, dormitories, administrative offices and chapel in this single structure.

The adaptive reuse of this historic structure had the programmatic challenge of inserting a new multi-story campus chapel within one of the traditional building wings. The remodel was built using period residential masonry, wood and steel building technology for a multi-story structure.

The College chose to respect the importance and integrity of the building with historically inspired materials. Artisans were employed for custom installations of masonry restoration, chapel pews, wood and stone carvings, light fixtures, statues, exit signs, stained glass and millwork.

Jury Comments: With challenging conditions existing in the original building and site, the designers conducted a wonderful reclamation for a very involved project. The outcome showed ‘addition by subtraction’ as a powerful move on the site.

5 Citation for Design

Fashion Tower New York, New York GRT Architects Brooklyn, New York Photo Credit: Naho Kubota

This recently completed renovation and historic restoration of Fashion Tower, an Art Deco-era skyscraper in New York’s Garment District. The building was originally designed by Emery Roth in the mid-1920s and was among the many buildings in what was once the epicenter of American clothing design and manufacturing, Fashion Tower is unique for its ornamental motifs referencing the apparel industry and for being occupied to this day by the garment trade.

Citation for Design

The Frick Collection Portico Gallery New York, New York Davis Brody Bond, LLP New York, New York Photo Credit: Paul Rivera Photography

The Portico Gallery at The Frick Collection has transformed an inaccessible exterior loggia into a new interior gallery for the display of sculpture and porcelain. As the museum’s first expansion in 35 years, the Gallery displays one of the museum’s most significant pieces of sculpture as well as a developing collection in the decorative arts. Originally an unrealized part of Henry Clay Frick’s vision for his collection, the gift of a renowned porcelain collection provided the impetus to create a new gallery for both sculpture and the decorative arts.

During the renovations, the importance of details referring to the district’s history were brought to light as the portal is once again flanked by polychrome terracotta panels with peacock motifs, symbols of apparel, elegance and style. The lobby wall nods to folds in fabric while the scale, color and material palette play on the balance between imposing and intimate that is a hallmark of New York Art Deco.

The original Frick Mansion ranks among Carrère and Hastings’ most important works and the design approach for the gallery carefully preserves the original character and feel of the loggia as an outdoor space. The new architectural details relate to the vocabulary of the original mansion and to John Russell Pope’s later addition in 1935. The original exterior features and finishes have been restored and the floors replaced with carefully matched bluestone in the original pattern.

Jury Comments: Restoring the glory of the original Emery Roth façade rejuvenates this fashion industry icon and provides an active gift to West 36th Street. The interior is successful as fabric frozen in marble.

Jury Comments: This gallery adaptation for the exterior loggia made a difficult task look easy. The sophisticated and complex intervention was conceived and detailed to with a simple elegance.

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6 Commercial/ Industrial Large Award of Merit

Award of Merit David Zwirner Gallery New York, New York Selldorf Architects New York, New York Photo Credit: Jason Schmidt

This 30,000 sf gallery for contemporary art is located in West Chelsea, a former industrial neighborhood now home to art galleries, new iconic architectural developments and the High Line.

The neighborhood’s industrial heritage inspired the simplicity and monumentality of the building’s design. Made from exposed concrete, the façade is both rough and refined, and the ground floor, a sliding teak storefront system allows the base of the building to open for art access.

The building is specifically designed to accommodate large installations and exhibitions of historic works by estate artists. Inside, the gallery and showroom spaces are diverse in their scale, materiality, and lighting, offering a flexible range of environments for the display of art.

The building sets a new environmental standard for art related facilities as the first LEED certified commercial art gallery in the U.S. Jury Comments: This West Chelsea gallery exhibits a richness of texture and materials That’s simple and elegant. Key details reinforce the simple approach.

Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation - Building 337 East Hanover, New Jersey Rafael Viñoly Architects PC New York, New York Photo Credit: Bruce Damonte Photography

Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation’s Building provides a flexible work environment which equips researchers with the technology necessary to develop cancer treatments. Two continuous workspaces spiral around a spacious central atrium, creating a singular uninterrupted environment, establishing strong connectivity and collaboration between employees and accommodates the expansion and contraction of research groups over time.

The atrium provides a completely day lit continuous work environment, housing over 800 workstations within a technologically-advanced energy-efficient triple-glazed curtain wall façade.

The six suspended conference rooms are entirely clad in glass, providing occupants the option of transparent or translucent walls that can be adjusted for privacy by activating the low-voltage current. Other amenities include a restaurant, conference facility, seemingly floating lounges in the central atrium and two outdoor terraces for social functions at the end of each spiral.

Jury Comments: Impeccable detailing permeates the interior as well as exterior expression of this project. Risk was taken on the refreshing arrangement of a typical office floor plate and seems to have paid off in reinforcing new kinds of office environmental districting and flexibility.

7 Award of Merit

Award of Merit

Sunset Park Material Recovery Facility Brooklyn, New York Selldorf Architects New York, New York Design Architect

WCNY Public Television & Radio Syracuse, New York King + King Architects, LLP Syracuse, New York Architect of Record

Steven Gambino Architects Staten Island, New York Architect of Record

Koning Eizenberg Architecture Santa Monica, CA Design Architect

Photo Credit: Nikolas Koenig

Photo Credit: Matthew Williams Photography

The Sunset Park Material Recovery Facility is a processing center for New York City’s curbside metal, glass, and plastic recyclables which is being undertaken by Sims Municipal Recycling and the City of New York.

The WCNY public television & radio broadcasting headquarters is one of several anchor tenants located in the adaptive re-use of a previous manufacturing facility, which had sat abandoned for more than 20 years. Originally initiated by a comprehensive community based master plan, the design was to identify an approach for urban development reconnecting the neighborhood with the downtown through a series of open and shared public spaces.

The Education Center is one of the project’s most unique features, the structure contains programs for school children and the public including classrooms, exhibitions, and interactive demonstration displays. A key element of the design is a steel bridge which connects the Education Center to a viewing platform inside the Processing Facility where the viewing platform allows students and visitors to see the recycling process in action.

The facility makes a major environmental contribution by delivering recyclables by barge—a strategy which minimizes the distance collection trucks must travel and eliminates 240,000 miles of annual vehicle travel from roadways. Recycled materials are used throughout and other sustainable measures include one of the largest applications of photovoltaics in New York City, a forthcoming wind turbine and bioswales for stormwater management.

Jury Comments: As a project focused on environmental issues, 102 Sunset seems to walk the walk of sustainability. It employs creative use of materials commonly associated with industrial building typology and elevates industrial vocabulary into a celebratory role while not being gratuitous. It has a functional layout with spirit.

The design maximizes flexibility by taking advantage of many programmatic adjacencies. On the interior, a large thirty-foot long acoustical door joins the television studios, the public courtyard serves as an outdoor workspace for staff and provides additional seating for the café and at night, this space can also be transformed into an open-air community cinema and event space.

Jury Comments: WCNY is playful and welcoming and creates identity and community for this client. The design includes a complement of old and new elements and the planning captures nicely scaled community outdoor space.

8 Citation for Design

Citation for Design Emperor Hotel Beijing Qianmen Beijing, China adam sokol architecture practice (asap) Buffalo, New York Photo Credit: Jonathan Leijonhufvud

Fulton Center New York, New York Grimshaw Architects New York, New York Executive Architect Arup New York, New York Prime Consultant The site of the Emperor Hotel, Qianmen was once occupied by a public bath and so the spirit of bathing and mystery lives on in the new hotel where the design is organized by emotions and dreams. From the l’Occitane Spa below ground to Beijing’s largest hotel roof bar above, the Emperor will offer visitors and residents alike a new public space and a new experience of the historic city.

The design is infused throughout with water from the pool cantilevered above the rooftop, it flows out and rains down, cascading through the hotel in a series of interior channels; dripping down threads from which hang floating plants; drizzling in an interior rainfall and eventually plummeting down to an underground waterfall in the heart of a hidden spa. An interior rainfall, the world’s only raining hotel, provides a rare moment of rain in a city otherwise on the edge of the desert.

Jury Comments: The images for this project portray magical qualities of water, surface and light for the public and private realms.

James Carpenter Design Associates New York, New York Architect HDR New York, New York Architect Page Ayres Cowley New York, New York Architect

Photo Credit: Halley Tsai/Grimshaw

Situated in the heart of Lower Manhattan, the Fulton Center is designed to be a catalyst for the redevelopment of the area. The dynamic transport environment is a vital link to this commercial center and its growing residential sector, streamlining connectivity between eight New York City Transit subway lines and enhancing the user experience for 300,000 daily transit passengers.

A new 350 foot long pedestrian tunnel constructed under Dey Street further improves connectivity, connects to PATH trains at the World Trade Center complex and two additional subway lines. Organized around a 120 foot atrium topped by a conical dome centered on the concourse below, the central architectural concept of redirecting natural light deep into the transit environment culminates in the design of the dome’s interior and a new integrated artwork titled Sky Reflector-Net. Suspended above the atrium and its reflective surface helping to reduce energy consumption, Sky Reflector-Net has reflective panels to distribute year-round daylight and bring the sky to the visitors.

Jury Comments: This newly activated public hub elevates the experience of urban transit and stitches together a complex web of infrastructure. It demonstrates an heroic urban gesture well planned.

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Commercial/ Industrial Small Citation for Design

Washington Square Park House New York, New York BKSK Architects New York, New York

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Institutional

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Award of Excellence

Anderson Collection Stanford, California Ennead Architects New York, New York Photo Credit: Tim Griffith for Ennead Architects

Photo Credit: Jeffrey Totaro

Dating from 1827, Washington Square Park is one of New York City’s most famous destinations. The design and construction of a new 3,100 square foot park structure, which now houses New York City Department of Parks and Recreation offices, public ADA-compliant restrooms and park maintenance facilities.

Although an important addition to the park, one of the project’s most valuable attributes is its inconspicuousness. In numerous ways, the structure treads lightly; the positioning of the structure enables the use of an existing cellar which houses mechanical equipment for the park’s fountain. Reusing this structure minimized disruption of the park’s archeologically sensitive grounds.

With the office portion of the park house positioned above it, the cellar was refurbished to include a break room, men’s and women’s locker rooms, and additional storage space.

The building is on track to achieve LEED Platinum certification.

Jury Comments: The Park House design represents a tasteful interpretation and appropriate character for a fairly utilitarian program. It demonstrates an elegant intervention in an iconic park.

The Anderson Collection building, which is part of a Stanford University directive to develop a prominent arts district and revitalized arts gateway to the University along Palm Drive, houses the prized collection of renowned twentieth-century American art recently donated to the University. The new 30,000-squarefoot-building includes dedicated gallery spaces, offices, a conference room, a library/study area and storage spaces.

A primary goal of the design was to translate and interpret the accessibility to the art, as it has been exhibited throughout the Anderson’s home and offices, fostering a similar powerfully direct and intimate experience. The gallery layout is conceived as one open room, freeing visitors from a prescribed sequence and promoting the exploration of individual interests.

The upper level is entirely reserved for art and full of natural light, creating a place apart which simultaneously connects visually to the surrounding landscape. Large windows are positioned to activate the pedestrian walkway by offering views into the library, gallery and academic spaces, fulfilling the gallery’s mission to become a vital educational space in addition to a gallery.

Jury Comments: With Stanford’s strong campus context this project employed a good strategy for dealing with programmatic blank facades found in gallery design. The new building elevation has richly composed elements and wonderful materiality that works well with the gateway role played by the Collection. It’s “one for the monograph”.

10 Award of Excellence

Award of Merit

Theatre for a New Audience at Polonsky Shakespeare Center New York, New York H3 Hardy Collaboration Architecture New York, New York

Kline Center Addition Carlisle, Pennsylvania CannonDesign New York, New York

Photo Credit: David Sundberg/ESTO

Photo Credit: Scott Frances

The design of the Theatre for a New Audience at Polonsky Shakespeare Center reflects the new building’s function as a laboratory for modern theatrical interpretation of classical plays. The simple form of the building belies its structural complexity and intricate acoustical isolation from the city’s exterior and subterranean noise. The exterior is cloaked in large gunmetal gray metal panels, the exterior skin appears as a seamless opaque surface in contrast to the front façade’s glass curtainwall suspended from above.

This building is located on the edge of Dickinson College’s historic campus, the first college in the newly formed United States, and is an addition to a 1980’s athletic complex. The College has a very strong commitment to sustainability in its curriculum, facilities, operations, culture and civic engagements, where the project takes this sustainable approach holistically with a number of integrated design features.

The intimate darkness of the 299-seat proscenium theater sets a stark contrast to the soaring, naturally lit lobby. The finishes and furniture in the theater are all black with no visual distraction from the activity on stage. Theater seating brings the audience close to the performers and is reconfigurable for changing performances. The project is anticipating a high LEED-NC Silver, where a key aspect is the incorporation of industry-leading, energy-efficient LED lighting throughout, rare in a building of its type.

Jury Comments: Theater is the star in project. The clear organization celebrates a ceremonial procession to your seat while doing a good job for urban activation in the neighborhood. With the receptive angle of the roof there is a nice blend of compression and opening at the street edge that gives a vibrant gradient of activity and layering.

The pallet of materials for the new building picks up the grey coloration of the campus stone with its enclosure and integrated sunshade system detailed in anodized aluminum. The addition is made up of a number of distinct constituent parts: a large outdoor covered piazza, a triangulated lobby and connecting sky lit concourse, wood clad office and café volume, a glass enclosed fitness center, a five court squash center and a south facing covered porch.

Jury Comments: The inside /outside quality elevates the program to a new level… “love the light”. The floating shroud is also wonderfully light.

11 Award of Merit

Citation for Design

Whitney Museum of American Art New York, New York Cooper Robertson New York, New York In collaboration with

Reid Building, The Glasgow School of Art Glasgow, United Kingdom Steven Holl Architects New York, New York Design Architect

Renzo Piano Building Workshop Genoa, Italy

JM Architects Glasgow, United Kingdom Associate Architect

Photo Credit: Nic Lehoux

Photo Credit: Iwan Baan

This building is located on the edge of Dickinson College’s historic campus, the first college in the newly formed United States, and is an addition to a 1980’s athletic complex. The College has a very strong commitment to sustainability in its curriculum, facilities, operations, culture and civic engagements, where the project takes this sustainable approach holistically with a number of integrated design features.

The pallet of materials for the new building picks up the grey coloration of the campus stone with its enclosure and integrated sunshade system detailed in anodized aluminum. The addition is made up of a number of distinct constituent parts: a large outdoor covered piazza, a triangulated lobby and connecting sky lit concourse, wood clad office and café volume, a glass enclosed fitness center, a five court squash center and a south facing covered porch.

Jury Comments: The new Whitney’s exciting interaction with the Highline provides a worthy new gem on the on this urban success story. It’s a great place to see and be seen.

The Seona Reid Building is in complementary contrast to Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s 1909 Glasgow School of Art, forging a symbiotic relation in which each structure heightens the integral qualities of the other.

Spaces have been located not only to reflect their interdependent relationships but also their varying needs for natural light.

Studios are positioned on the north façade with large inclined glazing to maximize access to the desirable high quality diffuse north light. The “Driven Void” light shafts deliver natural light through the depth of the building providing direct connectivity with the outside and provide vertical circulation through the building, eliminating the need for air conditioning. A ‘Circuit of Connection’ throughout encourages the interaction across and between departments that is central to the workings of the school. The open circuit of stepped ramps links all major spaces.

Jury Comments: This project represents a bold, new intervention into an older and historic fabric with sophisticated treatment of daylight and views in section. It has striking interior communal spaces as well great studio experiences.

12 Citation for Design

Citation for Design University Center, The New School New York, New York Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP New York, New York Architect SLCE Architects, New York, New York Residential Architect Photo Credit: James Ewing | OTTO

Yale School of Management, Edward P. Evans Hall New Haven, Connecticut IBI Group ▪ Gruzen Samton New York, New York Architect of Record Foster + Partners New York, New York Design Architects Photo Credit: Chuck Choi

Located at the intersection of 14th Street and 5th Avenue in New York City, this new multipurpose facility is the heart of The New School, a historic New York institution built on the values of academic freedom, tolerance, and experimentation. Vertical, horizontal, and diagonal campus pathways work together to facilitate movement through the building, while increasing opportunities for interaction among students and faculty, reflective of the university’s interdisciplinary nature. Academic spaces are flexible and easily adaptable, and can be renovated or reconfigured with minimal impact on power, data, or lighting to meet changing needs.

Envisioned as a model of energy efficiency, carbon reduction, and sustainability, the University Center project uses both low- and high-tech solutions to focus on saving energy and has achieved LEED Gold certification.

Jury Comments: University Center celebrates the idea that one’s experience of moving through a massive urban complex can successfully engage both the urban street and the interior.

Inspired by Yale’s reinvention of business school education and pioneering integrated curriculum, the Edward P. Evans Hall combines world-class teaching facilities with inspirational social spaces. The design brings a high level of transparency to the traditionally enclosed college courtyard, creating a green heart for the campus community, which is visible throughout the school.

Embracing the wider campus, the transparent façade opens the building up to Whitney Avenue, making visible the staircases on either side of the entrance and showcasing the School’s activities.

The design process was highly collaborative and involved dialogue with faculty members and experimentation with different spatial configurations where the team produced a full scale mockup allowing teaching staff to experience the lecture space.

Tailored to Yale’s curriculum, the teaching spaces can support every style of learning, from team-based working to lectures, discussions ‘in the round’ and video conferencing.

Jury Comments: The generosity of open space in this building complements the density of classrooms and supports interaction in a wonderful way. It’s very slick, but appropriate for a technology driven learning environment. Yale got it, Harvard didn’t.

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Institutional AIA Chapter Recognition Citation for Design

Rosica Hall, Rochester Institute of Technology Rochester, New York HBT Architects Rochester, New York Photo Credit: Tim Wilkes

Located within one of countries largest learning institutions for the deaf, this project was designed and constructed to further the university’s recognition as the national leader in research related to the education of persons who are deaf and hard of hearing.

The University’s methodology is one in which faculty and students are directly engaged and involved in the research process; the project houses Strategic Research Centers, Laboratories for Discipline-Based Research and an Innovation Laboratory where faculty engage students in scholarship and innovation activities.

In addition to the research spaces, the building includes conference and meeting areas, an atrium space and a meditation garden; these spaces are designed to encourage and support open and creative communication for both deaf and hearing individuals.

In all phases of design, the needs of the deaf and hard of hearing were addressed, by understanding deaf communication, the architects were able to create spaces allowing for creativity, engagement and collaboration.

Jury Comments: This project’s specialty accommodation for the hearing impaired and advocacy for universal design is really laudable. Integration of these elements into our campus and every-day intuitional environments is key to having tangible evolution in the designed world.

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Interiors

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Award of Excellence

Pivot New York, New York Architecture Workshop PC Brooklyn, New York Photo Credit: Robert Garneau

Pivot is a pre-war 400 sf studio renovated into a modern adaptable space containing a secret bedroom. The project emphasizes open space while overlaying multi-functionality, transforming in response to different needs with extensive custom cabinetry defining various spatial experiences depending on use.

This compact project functions like a Swiss Army knife, unfolding to reveal separate functions as needed. A simple haven is created, visually unencumbered by possessions while supporting various activities effortlessly and attractively.

Jury Comments: The strategically arranged elements elegantly address the classic NYC cramped apartment. This project is as much ‘environmental’ as it is about ‘spatial’ storage… ”a Murphy Bedroom.”

14 Award of Merit

St. Hilda's & St. Hugh's School New York, New York Murphy Burnham & Buttrick Architects LLP New York, New York Photo Credit: Frank Oudeman

We reimagined the character and function of the learning and play spaces for St. Hilda’s and St. Hugh’s School as part of a comprehensive interior renovation. Design features set apart dedicated language classrooms, music rooms, art and shop studios, science and prep areas, even play and fitness spaces, each designed to contribute to a rich environment for discovery and exploration.

Underutilized rooftop spaces were reclaimed and in-filled with a highly flexible multipurpose room and a fully automated teaching greenhouse for soil and hydroponic plant propagation. An expanded playdeck was reimagined as a series of landscaped outdoor rooms with play structures and furniture. A cloud room creates a figurative landscape for play, a garden room with a living wall is an intimate zone for small group study and quiet play, and an activity room provides opportunities to climb and build, featuring an airplane cockpit and fuselage all within an enclosed park-like setting.

Jury Comments: “This project makes me smile”. it’s not overly contrived and it’s fun and interesting.

Citation for Design

David Yurman Headquarters New York, New York Lynch Eisinger Design Architects New York, New York Photo Credit: Amy Barkow | Barkow Photo

The recently completed 70,000 sf renovation is the new corporate headquarters, showroom, design studio, jeweler’s workshop and a state-of-the-art prototype fabrication shop for David Yurrman Jewelers in New York City. The Architects developed a new master plan which rethinks and ultimately transforms, the company’s organization by redistributing departments while also accommodating future growth.

To provide a more open working environment, the architects radically reduced the number of private offices and, in turn, increased the quantity of group work areas, showrooms, small and larger meeting rooms, as well as, breakout spaces, wellness rooms and “phone booths” for more private one-on-one conversations. The palette of Peruvian walnut, blackened cold-rolled steel and exposed concrete lend to the space’s warm character and one at home with the David Yurman jewelry collections.

Jury Comments: The approach provides a pleasant surprise for integrated seating within the wall and a creative staging of all elements, including the use of glass near the columns.

15 Citation for Design

Citation for Design

Pratt Institute Department of Film & Video Brooklyn, New York WASA/Studio A New York, New York Photo Credit: Alexander Severin/RAZUMMEDIA

New York University Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development New York, New York LTL Architects New York, New York Photo Credit: Michael Moran Studio

This renovation of over 70,000 square feet of space in NYU’s historic Greenwich Village campus addresses both the shifting programmatic needs of a major academic organization and provides infrastructural upgrades to meet LEED Gold standards. The largest component of this project is the renovation of the East Building to house three of Steinhardt’s premier departments on seven contiguous floors and provide a consolidated institutional identity for the School.

Combining faculty offices, meeting areas and a series of unique functional spaces, the design maximizes exchange and interaction among faculty, students and staff. Each floor is organized as a perimeter of offices and an internal core. The interaction between core and perimeter activates the hallways while the sculpted ceiling at each core allows for indirect lighting and spatial definition of multiple functions.

Jury Comments: Each floor has its own identity, but there is consistency throughout with a playful sculptural quality. This project exhibited restraint but still had an active, interesting palette.

The new Pratt Department of Film and Video is a built manifestation of the highly iterative and creative client/architect process.

Identifying program elements with unique architectural needs, such as sound isolation and double height space, then identifying which program elements should be celebrated and most identifiable to the public.

The auditorium became the most central, large and special program area. The site is an existing one-story warehouse building which previously housed the Pratt campus store. The structure itself had no distinguishing features except its interior height and featured this one aspect to the greatest extent possible, designing the overall space to allow the auditorium and recording studio to read as objects sitting in an open interior volume.

Jury Comments: The arrangement and sequence of objects draw one into the core. The jury loved the tight spaces around the theater.

16 Citation for Design

Sculpture in the Age of Donatello Exhibit, MoBiA New York, New York Studio Joseph New York, New York

Citation for Design

Virgin Atlantic Clubhouse at LAX Los Angeles, California Slade Architecture New York, New York Photo Credit: Tom Sibley

Photo Credit: Arch Photo, Inc.

MoBiA is a small New York City institution known for well-curated, provocative exhibitions. By agreeing to a tight schedule for design and installation, the museum attracted this once-ina-lifetime show of works from the Duomo of Florence. The show of Renaissance sculptures is one of great complexity and logistics where the space has a quality of lightness and clarity which makes the sculptures intensely vivid, creating a powerful and moving setting.

The exhibit's intent is to abstract the space to an almost heavenly level, which places prominence on the sculptures. A promenade was created through the pieces, to create mystery and discovery, as the circulation route takes the visitor on a geographic path around the Duomo from one “porta” to the next. As part of an all-white, ethereal environment, the graphic system uses the church's plan for orientation of the pieces. Centered in the room are Brunelleschi’s original wooden models for the dome, lantern, and side chapels.

Jury Comments: Compressing a large exhibit into a small space is always a challenge and this project successfully navigated that territory. Its simple idea and spare detailing provides an appropriate place for artplace-making. It demonstrates bold curating for a sublime art experience.

The new Virgin Atlantic Clubhouse located at Los Angeles International Airport puts a distinctly Southern California spin on Virgin Atlantic’s warmth and individuality. The lounge overlooking the Hollywood Hills recalls LA’s warm sunsets, flowing surf, laid back lifestyle. The reception area envelopes guests in a calm, cleansing environment sheltered from the bustle of the terminal.

Leading into the main lounge is a sculpted Corian and copper Flow Wall which continues into the space and cuts diagonally through the lounge as a backdrop for the Clubhouse opposite continuous views that include aircraft, LAX’s iconic Theme Building, runways, the Hollywood Hills and the Hollywood sign.

The furnishings here include classic Walter Knoll Turtle chairs and a custom fabricated surfboard inspired counter along the windows. The classic Eames chairs at this counter are a direct reference to the famous California design team of Ray and Charles Eames who helped define the modernist California aesthetic.

Jury Comments: The curves, colors, furniture are retro, but still fresh.

The ceiling elevates a conventional space and celebrates flight…“Seems LA to me.”

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P

International

Pro Bono

Award of Excellence

Award of Merit

School No. 1, Krabbesholm Skive, Denmark MOS Architects New York, New York

Chipakata Children’s Academy Zambia, Africa Susan T. Rodriguez, FAIA Ennead Architects/ EnneadLab New York, New York Frank Lupo FAIA, LEED AP Forest Hills, NY

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Randy Antonia Lott MdeAS Architects New York, NY Fabian Bedolla, RA Brooklyn, New York Hiroko Nakatani EnneadLab New York, NY

Photo Credit: Joseph Mizzi

Photo Credit: Per Andersen

Krabbesholm Højskole needed to expand and relocate their studios for art, architecture, graphic design and photography. The arrangement of the studios produces informal interconnected exterior courtyards and studio buildings with large windows and covered porches which foster social and visual interaction.

The shared studio porches are filled with chairs and tables for casual conversation, offering a series of discrete places to convene. The thin and elongated proportions of the studios allow for visual transparency, collapsing the field of vision and producing a vibrant interconnected space for the disciplines and their work.

Clad in industrial cement rainscreen panels, the new studios relate to both the sixteenth-century buildings on the campus and the large industrial buildings nearby.

Jury Comments: Krabbesholm is orderly but comfortably informal: stiff but not stiff. It seems to maximize opportunity by creating tension with its striking geometry and consequent tight squeezes and acute angles.

Chipakata Children’s Academy is a new primary school in Zambia, Africa. It is the first initiative of the 14+ Foundation, a New York City-based non-profit organization.

Situated on level topography with views to the surrounding hills east and west, the design of the project seeks to define a sense of place and community for the Village. Locating the school within the village has dramatically reduced the distance the children have to walk to school each day.

Nearby, agricultural fields dedicated to generating food and income support the operation of the school and ensure long-term economic sustainability for the project.

Referencing regional school planning typologies, the design of the classroom structure transforms the standard model to create a new paradigm. The design provides for ten teaching and learning spaces compared to the four rooms found in the typical prototype. The window openings and roof canopy are configured to maximize daylight within the classrooms. Clerestory windows are integrated into all the classrooms with a continuous roof overhang serving to protect spaces on both levels from harsh solar gain during the summer months. Adjacent to the classroom building is a community gathering space, a triangular shaped structure, providing shelter from the sun and rain and a flexible space for eating, gathering and community celebrations.

All the materials were locally procured and assembled on site.

Jury Comments: The structure is a simple, straightforward, flexible and elegant solution to make space and shade in a hot climate. It’s an excellent example of pro-bono work that serves humanity… love the big idea.

R

Residential Large 18 Award of Excellence

Elizabeth II Amagansett, New York Bates Masi + Architects Sag Harbor, New York Photo Credit: Bates Masi + Architects

Research in architectural acoustics drove the form, materials and detail of the house, not only shielding the property from the sound of the village, but also manipulating interior details to create a unique acoustic character for the house, one that will instill lasting memories for the family and their guests.

The house is comprised of a series of parallel walls that provide layers of privacy and insulation from the sound of the village.

The walls project beyond the living spaces and ascend in height, building from a human-scale wall at the entry to a high wall along the center of the house. The walls diffract the sound waves moving past them, casting an acoustic shadow over the property to create a quiet outdoor gathering area.

Jury Comments: Simple architectural ideas followed all of the way through the details and the details were well edited and executed.

Elizabeth II elevates fasteners to the most important part of the project.

It was ambitious to coordinate between interior and exterior in this way but the designer pulled it off nicely. The massing and proportions are simple and elegant.

Award of Merit

36SML House Amagansett, New York LEVENBETTS New York, New York Photo Credit: Michael Moran Photography

36SML House in Amagansett, New York is an 8,000 square foot house on a suburban lot a near the sea where the primary design charge was to create a big, but informal house. The design solution, was a triple-spoked house comprised of thin wings joined at an outdoor center created an alternative site plan, counter to the traditional “front yard-back” yard organization.

The spaces are easily cross-ventilated while also having views outward across the width of the wings. The ends of the wings then open onto a series of outdoor experiences. At the conjunction of the three wings above the covered entry, an outdoor amphitheater ascends to the roof deck. This slowly stepped outdoor space creates a large open gathering area on the second floor, opening up the house to the ocean air and sunlight. In addition, this open outdoor space allows for a natural chimney effect where cool sea breezes push warm air up and through the house.

Jury Comments: This house incorporates a dynamic plan with an innovative flow and zoning of the site as well as the overall building. It’s a fun place to be – my teenagers would love this villa savoy retooled!

19 Award of Merit

House on Maine Coast Camden, Maine Toshiko Mori Architect, PLLC New York, New York Photo Credit: Paul Warchol Photography

Award of Merit

Quonochontaug House Charlestown, Rhode Island Bernheimer Architecture Brooklyn, New York Photo Credit: Jeremy Bittermann

This ecological home is characterized by the use of local materials and passive sustainable features.

The house itself is divided into three intersecting volumes; each has a unique relationship to the ground and surrounding landscape. A lap pool, embedded longitudinally into the hillside, connects the upper guest house to the lower main house. The Z-shape arrangement of the volumes strategically shields direct views from the street and the neighboring properties, while framing the desirable views to the east; the harbor, island, and ocean reveal themselves slowly as one descends the sloping site through the house.

Jury Comments: Having a wonderful integration into the iconic coastal Maine topography this house incorporates an earnest sensitivity to its site. It highlights a dramatic sequence of program spaces and outlooks that engage the whole house in a simple way.

A weekend retreat for a family in coastal Rhode Island, Quonochontaug House is organized around an open-plan ground floor punctuated by a series of double-height skylit spaces that progress from entry to bay view. The skylight volumes taper at their apex to the dimension of standard skylights, which provide shifting and ephemeral natural light patterns throughout the day. The outdoor deck on the water-facing side of the house contains its own double-height space that is open to the sky.

The second floor is supported, volumetrically, by a cluster of plywood-clad shapes on the first floor containing building services.

A series of bedrooms distributed around the skylight volumes which extend upwards from the first floor and the master bedroom is surrounded by windows on three sides, with an expansive view of the water.

The exterior of the house is clad in Shou Sugi Ban, custom-milled slats of cypress which have been charred and oiled.

Jury Comments: Complex and sophisticated in a small package this residence maximizes the space between buildings and site potential.

The designer was skillful with the compositional elements including the skylight detailing.

R

20

Residential Multi Family

Citation for Design

Award of Merit

University Village Townhouses, SUNY Fredonia Fredonia, New York CJS Architects Rochester, New York Princeton House Princeton, New Jersey LEVENBETTS New York, New York Photo Credit: Naho Kubota

The Princeton House sits in a long thin 3-acre site, a former White Pine tree farm, near Princeton University.

The house is simple in its design concept and its sustainable strategy. It uses basic ideas of passive solar heating, cross ventilation for cooling and a highly calibrated choreography of window placement to create connection to the outdoors. The central courtyard contains a garden which creates an interior/exterior space. In addition, this courtyard allows for natural ventilation to occur throughout the house mitigating the need for air conditioning by being located in the middle of the house and open to the second floor. The kitchen, living, dining and library all spiral around the courtyard. With so many large windows the house is constantly flooded with natural light which changes throughout the day.

Jury Comments: This house takes a thoroughly contemporary approach that works in an affluent traditional community. It demonstrates a nice balance between being generous and modest.

Photo Credit: Don Cochran Photography

The project’s goal was to create a student living community, with the emphasis placed on “community”.

All apartments have entry porches and full lite entry doors which look directly out to a public realm organized around a system of small scale, pedestrian, streets and squares. A central pedestrian street leads to a community building/village center with shared services and activity/meeting space. The community building forms a literal gateway to the academic buildings of the campus beyond.

The University Village Townhouse Project is also environmentally sustainable and has achieved LEED for Homes Platinum Certification.

Jury Comments: University Village has a spirit and richness of place with simple plan moves and interesting massing. The design shows evidence of a progressive walkable campus district with a clean and well executed design.

21 Citation for Design

Citation for Design 170 Amsterdam Avenue New York, New York Handel Architects New York, New York Photo Credit: Bruce Damonte

Blue Pool Road Central, Hong Kong Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates New York, New York Exterior Design Architect The building’s architecture and the exoskeleton which defines the exterior is derived from its location between large green spaces and its immediate context. The intersections of the structure rise to the top of the building at different heights, giving the appearance of a façade in motion while also allowing for the prefabricated fiberglass formwork to be reused with the concrete cycle.

Moving the structure to the outside of the enclosure freed up valuable interior space which would have been occupied by columns and the projecting slabs and columns provide a veil over the all glass façade and act as a shading device.

The deep façade of the diagrid connects with the buildings of lower Amsterdam Avenue, Lincoln Center, the Upper West Side and iconic Chicago architecture. The concrete used to create the exoskeleton is the result of a specialized mix which gives the material the appearance of limestone, a nod to the buildings in the Lincoln Square neighborhood.

Jury Comments: The concept of an exoskeletal, expressed structure is especially innovative for this building type. While the structural design drives the experience, in this case it seems to appropriately free the plan and provide a fresh outlook for unit flexibility. The typical challenges of an exoskeletal frame were resolved elegantly.

Ronald Lu & Partners Wanchai, Hong Kong Lead Architect Photo Credit: Tim Griffith

Eighteen single family townhouses located in Happy Valley, Hong Kong, this project introduced a residential typology, the row house, to an urban environment where it is virtually unknown.

The building type is adapted to, and used in, a very different context from its normal condition becoming part of a retaining wall, helping to stabilize the extreme slope of a steep hillside. Livable density is added by activating an otherwise unusable site.

One of the primary goals of the design was to give each house a high degree of privacy. This was achieved by separating one from the next by a solid fin wall of Indian granite, asymmetrical bay windows used to deflect views away from straight confrontation with neighboring windows and contains an automated mechanized internal shading device which provides privacy and tempers solar gain.

Jury Comments: This project makes an interesting creation of a nice pedestrian street on an incredibly restrained site. The range of envelope detailing with transparent and opaque elements still feels individually special and rich despite the long building. The designer shows evidence of hand craft in a project that was necessarily repetitive.

R

U

Residential Small 22

Unbuilt Young (Less than 10 years)

Award of Merit

Citation for Design

Museum of the Outdoor Arts Element House Star Axis, New Mexico MOS Architects New York, New York Photo Credit: Florian Holzer

P-A-R-T: Prefabricated Apartment Remodeling Type Seoul, Korea Dioinno Architecture, PLLC Buffalo, New York Photo Credit: Jin Young Song

The Museum of the Outdoor Arts Element House is a structural insulated panel (SIPS) modular building designed to operate independently of public utilities by integrating passive systems and on-site energy generation. Using simple sustainable building practices to increase environmental performance, everything is stripped down to basic components. The organization of the house is based on an expansive geometric system of growth, radiating and aggregating outward, one module after another.

A decentralized field of solar chimney volumes replace the traditional central solid mass of the domestic hearth.

Jury Comments: ‘Element’ is an innovative approach to life in the desert.

With sculptural contrast between the architecture and the site, passive elements are well expressed and integrated into the architecture.

In Korea, 60% of total population lives in the tower blocks and half of them are old enough to consider reconstruction or remodeling. P-A-R-T, or Prefabricated Apartment Remodeling Type, suggests new dimension of sustainability and economic efficiency by revitalizing the tower blocks and extending their life.

P-A-R-T opens up new possibilities with its cost efficiency and reduced construction time in residential construction industry.

While typical reconstruction or remodeling takes an extended period of time, P-A-R-T delivers the module from the factory and install the connection while residents stay and reside in their home. Customers can select from the brochure which illustrates diverse program modules, such as extended living room, office, kid’s play area, library or studio. The double height module can connect two stacked units transforming them into two story apartment.

Jury Comments: A systems approach for modifying apartment blocks is especially innovative and challenging for this building type and the designer’s revitalization proposal would be appropriate worldwide. The strategy provides possibilities for adding a refreshing variety, complexity, flexibility, sustainability and richness in a building type that would otherwise be relatively plain, low performance or un-inspired.

U

23

  Urban Planning/Design Citation for Design

The Brooklyn Strand Brooklyn, New York WXY architecture + urban design New York, New York Photo Credit: WXY architecture + urban design

More action-oriented than an urban design study, and more open-ended than a Master Plan, the “Brooklyn Strand Action Plan,� commissioned by the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership, is based on a highly iterative design and visioning process, responsive to community feedback and the many stakeholder reviews.

Core to the Action Plan is the need to balance a variety of local interests, parking, accessibility, and connecting with the promenade and market, with larger urban issues concerning parks equity and equal access to city parks.

Jury Comments: Developing the Stand is a thoughtful way to extend energy of waterfront into Brooklyn. The project provides a wide variety of experiences with innovative elements and a much needed public green space perpendicular to the shore and connecting otherwise isolated park infrastructure resources.

Citation for Design

Train Terraces Westbury, New York LTL Architects New York, New York Photo Credit: LTL Architects

The proposal creates a dynamic interchange between transportation, commerce, culture and living in the place of singleuse surface parking and dramatically expands the functions of a commuter parking and the train stop, allowing daily riders a range of amenities, as well as additional parking and inter-modal transportation options.

The proposal looks intentionally beyond the boundaries of the given site, to rethink the potential of Long Island reorganized and revitalized around new patterns of living and travel.

Jury Comments: The planning strategy evident in Train Terraces could be a demonstrated model for transit oriented development in many locales.

The designers accomplished a lot of vision and urban site accommodation within one mixed use building.

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Excelsior Awards for public architecture

H

Historic Preservation

Award DePaul Carriage Factory Apartments Rochester, New York SWBR Architects Rochester, New York Photo Credit: Gene Avallone/Park Avenue Photo

Originally founded for the production of horse-drawn carriages, the Cunningham Carriage Factory was one of the oldest manufacturing plants in Rochester. Through the 1920s the company was able to reinvent itself producing ambulances, hearses, and tanks for the war effort and in the late twenties, they shifted yet again, extending their first-rate design capabilities into aviation; however, The Great Depression tempered the success of that endeavor.

The project consists of the adaptive reuse of a 5 story factory with brick masonry load bearing exterior wall construction with heavy timber beams, columns and floor decking. The exterior single pane windows of the building were in great disrepair and required complete replacement.

We see this project as an opportunity to memorialize the quality efforts that took place in the building for close to 80 years. The James Cunningham name was revered all over the world for being makers of high quality transportation vehicles from coaches and carriages to airplanes. The re-purposing of the building takes an understanding and respect the past, but also should connect and be relevant to the future use.

Jury comments: Conversion of the original paint shop into a strong and well-lit ensemble of lobby, a strong design eye for materials textures and forms. Interior work had exceptional craftsmanship with a nod to its place in history. A multifamily housing project that accomplished the look of luxury condominiums.

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Award

Award

DePaul Riverside Apartments Buffalo, New York SWBR Architects Rochester, New York

Sonnenberg Gardens and Mansion Rehabilitation Canandaigua, New York Beardsley Architect + Engineers Malone, New York

Photo Credit: Gene Avallone/Park Avenue Photo

Photo Credit: Dave Revette, Revette Studio

Constructed in 1896, Buffalo’s Riverside Academy closed in 2002, after over 100 years of service. After years of neglect, the building was falling into serious disrepair when DePaul Properties looked past the dilapidated appearance and took a chance on the structure as the site for 68 affordable and supportive care apartments.

Sonnenberg Gardens is comprised of a 52-acre section of the original Frederick Ferris Thompson and Mary Clark Thompson Estate in Canandaigua, NY. The Thompsons were pioneers of the banking industry and the bank that they originally founded went on to become Citibank. The couple owned the estate from 1863 until 1923 when the widowed Mary Clark Thompson died. In 1931, during the Great Depression, an heir of the Thompson estate sold the property to the federal government who in turn converted the property into the campus for a new Veteran’s Administration Hospital.

The existing structure provided unique challenges for use as an apartment building. The generous corridors and floor heights allow for open, light-filled spaces, but the building also contains much more service and common area than would normally be found in an apartment building.

Elevated floors were installed within the gymnasium and the basement in order to bring the occupied level up to the existing high windows, providing space for additional apartments.

Existing materials were reused within the building wherever possible.

Classroom doors were restored for use as apartment entrances, hardwood floors pulled from the gymnasium were refinished and used as hallway flooring. Marble shower partitions from the locker rooms were repurposed as wainscoting in the community and staff restrooms.

Riverside Academy is deeply embedded in the history and identity of the neighborhood. This project has transformed an empty shell, home for only the memories of the neighbors who grew up attending the school, into a new vibrant community for 68 residents and the staff that serves them. DePaul saved a beautiful structure from further deterioration and repaired a hole in the fabric of this struggling but proud neighborhood.

Jury comments: Reconstruction of existing spaces in brilliant response to each stakeholder’s needs without sacrificing quality. Well planned reuse of materials establishing a new sense of space, sensitive, well-designed modern insertions contribute to and respect the original architecture.

In 1970, after years of neglect a group of local citizens formed The Friends of Sonnenberg with the intention of restoring the grand estate.

They began by restoring areas that had been renovated by the VA. Now owned by the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation, the property is being brought back to its former glory.

The existing Queen Anne-style Victorian mansion and surrounding structures date back to the mid-1800s and were designed by Architect Francis Allen from Boston. The project consists of numerous structural repairs to both the mansion and the surrounding structures. Designed to match the original architecture, the work was completed in large part through a grant by the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation.

The design team took great care in making sure that the building repairs not only provide a more functional facility for the enjoyment of park patrons, but also remained consistent with the existing structure in both material and color. Each new and/or restored area of the mansion or grounds blends seamlessly with the existing structure.

Jury comments: A beautiful rehabilitation restored the dignity of great home so that future generations may experience a piece of NY History.

Attention to detail and scale make the exterior garden elements resonate with the accompanying restoration work of the mansion.

N

26

New Construction

Award of Distinction Miles and Shirley Fiterman Hall, CUNY New York, New York Pei Cobb Freed & Partners Architects LLP New York, New York Photo Credit: Kerun Ip

Award of Distinction

The original Fiterman Hall, the southernmost component of the BMCC campus, was severely damaged in the September 11 terrorist attacks by the collapse of the neighboring 7 World Trade Center. This project included the environmental remediation and deconstruction of the damaged structure. The new facility houses classrooms, computer labs, faculty and administrative offices, student lounges and study areas, a conference center on the top two floors, and a café and art gallery on the ground floor.

The greatest design challenge presented by the Fiterman Hall program is the accommodation of a vertical campus on a relatively small site. The building houses 15 levels of program space, including one basement level and is the home for four major academic programs, in addition to providing a significant portion of BMCC’s general education teaching spaces. Several major strategies were employed to address this challenge.

The north and south faces of the building each have a stack of twostory atrium spaces with interconnecting open spiral stairs and student lounge areas. These stairs allow students to travel up or down one flight from the express elevator stops.

The building has two major entrances: one on the northwest corner, serving as a natural link to the rest of the BMCC campus, and another on the south side, facing a new triangular park and the World Trade Center site beyond. This symbolic front entry features a raised terrace with a public café and provides direct access to the art gallery.

Jury comments: A beautifully serene building whose brilliant planning allows both dynamic and serene spaces to coexist. Very impressed with the subtle profiles and balance of materials/fenestration at the exterior, as well as the continuity and dynamic nature and relationships of the interior volumes.

Post Road Elementary School White Plains, New York KG&D Architects, PC Mount Kisco, New York Architect

Sue McClymonds, Architect Amsterdam, New York Architect Project Specifications Photo Credit: David Lamb Photography

The project for the Post Road Elementary School involved the replacement of an aging traditional 1914 school building with a vibrant 21st Century educational facility which has earned an Energy Star rating of 100 and is presently the most energy-efficient public school in New York State. Sustainable solutions were incorporated into all facets of the design, as notable features include a closed loop geothermal heat pump system, heat recovery ventilating units, solar thermal heating panels, an extensive green roof and regional and low/no VOC recycled building materials.

The 95,000sf replacement school consists of a two-story classroom building with a central courtyard. which provides indoor/outdoor connection and offers an informal, multipurpose meeting and teaching space. The two classroom level plans evenly divide lower and upper grades and by locating the assembly spaces together—cafeteria, gymnasium and library--the school district has the ability to open the campus and community spaces to the neighborhood while securing the classroom spaces.

The neighborhood school blends traditional materials and building elements with contemporary features and details. The new, sustainable, campus was flexibly designed to meet new and emerging programming and technology while maintaining the accessibility and community focus of the traditional neighborhood school.

Jury comments: In addition to the complexities of ensuring an Energy Star rating of 100 the architects have made a building that is beautifully proportioned. A combination of geothermal heating and cooling, solar thermal, a vegetated roof and a resulting 65% reduction in building energy use makes this an exemplary building.

Evokes a sense that little minds are being cultivated to be curious of their surroundings.

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Award

Award

P.S. 197 Comfort Station Queens, New York Sage and Coombe Architects New York, New York

Administration Building Hudson Valley Community College Troy, New York architecture+ Troy, New York

Photo Credit: Sage and Coombe Architects

Photo Credit: Matt Wargo

Located in the Rockaways in Queens, the PS 197 Comfort Station was designed as a part of a new prototype for a series of park facilities throughout New York City Parks. While prosaic in function, the building seeks to take standard architectural elements and through simple customizations, transform them into something unique.

The need for artificial lighting is reduced by a continuous band of clerestory windows around the entire upper register. The glazing is protected with a custom perforated stainless steel screen depicting the harbor sky from an 18th century painting of New York Harbor by Thomas Chambers.

In addition to maximizing passive lighting through the clerestory, the windows are operable to encourage passive ventilation as well. As a result, lights and active ventilation are rarely turned on, thus minimizing the energy footprint of the building. Rainwater from the high albedo roof is collected and fed through a gutter into an adjacent rain garden.

The PS 197 Park Facility leverages a palette of simple materials to maximize sustainability and longevity, and minimize life-cycle costs, creating a public facility that is both useful and visually engaging. The broader goal is not to only create a moment of well-considered public architecture, but to elevate the character and quality of public architecture throughout.

Jury Comments: This is nothing less than an architectural jewel. Very clever, thoughtful layering of resilient materials in a simple (not simplistic) way. It’s curious without being too self-important. An ecologically thoughtful and artful design for a building that has a utilitarian use.

The Administration Building was designed to provide mixed use space in which the College could bring together all of the administrative offices that had been located off campus, create a new art gallery that could serve the campus’s growing Visual Arts program, and provide seven new classrooms. They also sought to incorporate sustainable design features into the building and to build the last physical element necessary to complete the long-term master plan goal of creating a pedestrian friendly quadrangle in what was an amorphous and underutilized space.

The building employs several sustainable features. Core utility functions occupy the lowest floor of one side of the building that is partially below grade. A heat pump mechanical system which effectively transfers heat from one exposure to another, both in heating and cooling cycles. Solar shading components help to control heat gain at the south and west elevations and complement the aesthetic identity of each façade. Glazed “entries” into departmental office suite allow natural light to permeate all spaces thus maximizing day-lighting and views to the exterior.

The existing topography drops one story from one end to the other along the major internal path through the building. This change of elevation is celebrated and carefully choreographed at the main entry atrium, where both vertical and horizontal movement become one in a series of open stairs, bridges, and balconies.

Jury comments: One sinewy façade balances the well proportioned other elevations. The Art gallery is especially serene. Unique and varied facades along with its strategic siting make this project engaging and interesting for the campus.

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28

New Construction

Award

Award

FDNY Marine Company 01 New York, New York CDR Studio Architects, PC New York, New York

Empire City at Yonkers Raceway Yonkers, New York Studio V Architecture New York, New York

Photo Credit: John Muggenborg

Photo Credit: Paul Warchol Photography

Located on Pier 53 on the Hudson River, MC1 is a publicly commissioned homeland-security facility for the Fire Department of New York City. The project will house Manhattan’s last remaining fireboat company.

Buildings that serve the public come in many forms, and Empire City is an unusual building in every way. For a building designed for gaming, this architecture breaks all the rules.

The surge of the Hudson, reflected river light, shifting winds and tidal patterns register the passage of time as well as its constancy. Rather than erase the site’s traces, the project aims to embrace the rawness and patina of the site without nostalgia. The scheme was conceived as an extrusion that registers its depth of structure. Existing piles remain as a palimpsest of past pier river structures. The building is embedded and rises out of this field.

The building is equally unusual for the size of its contributions to the local community. The building is privately owned but run in conjunction with the New York State Gaming Commission, which contributed 50 percent to the construction of the new building.

The pier level includes a drive-through garage and staging area for fire trucks and Special Operation Command vehicles, as well as buoy storage. The footprint of the company house is minimized to preserve sightlines from the future park. As a result, the 9,000 square foot facility is a vertical stack of program. The second level is a series of shearing zones, connecting yet distinguishing shared activities of the company corps, and the third level is an array of particularized spaces clustered around the inner core of the locker room.

The constant impact of the natural Hudson River frontage conditions, weather and resultant weathering is considered an opportunity. Each of the faceted surfaces of the building is articulated according to the program areas it serves and the ephemeral qualities embraced.

Jury comments: A series of rotated floors rising from the pier combine to offer a unique and symbolic landmark whose character is at once original and a little whimsical. A bold architectural statement, also intending to stimulate strong designs for future development phases. A striking, unique building that serves as a beacon on the shore.

The architecture also features highly innovative materials, fabrication techniques, and lighting. The massive steel lattice shell structure is clad in ETFE foil, and illuminated with custom LED lights suspended over the surface. The curved geometry of fritted glass panels contrast with the straight geometry of custom perforated zinc panels.

The interiors eschew themed environments and feature parametrically designed artworks by the architect made up of hundreds of thousands of polycarbonate panels and copper and stainless steel pins that create abstract and shimmering urban landscapes. These artworks are designed to change depending on the patron’s point of view.

The architecture and the interiors create a highly original response to this typically uninspiring building type, while making a major and lasting contribution to the local community.

Jury comments: The soaring spaces and imaginative creativity in uses of material and works of art form an inspiring and stimulating environment. A powerful design statement that brings life to a relatively static and architecturally quiet area of the track facilities.

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Award

Award

CUNY Advanced Science Research Center & City College Center for Discovery and Innovation New York, New York Kohn Pedersen Fox Flad Architects Associates New York, New York New York, New York Architect of Record Design Architect Photo Credit: Jeremy Bittermann

Hunter’s Point Campus Queens, New York FXFOWLE Architects New York, New York

Creating a gateway for science for the City University of New York, the two buildings of the Advanced Science Research Center (ASRC) are positioned at the crest of a hill, as a beacon, overlooking Harlem.

In valuing outdoor green space within the density of the city, the ASRC utilizes ideas of spatial compression and release to provide a dynamic science campus, while allowing for open public space for the community of Harlem. This is achieved by positioning the two buildings so as to create a charged dialogue enhanced by their proximity which frees up the desired green public space. The design of the laboratory block is dictated by the equipment and functions it houses as well as the need for flexibility and periodic change of configuration. The rigor of the large lab bars is offset by the fluidity of smaller scaled parts of the buildings. Spaces which are more flexible in their configuration, such as offices and social spaces, flex and bend, responding to the compressive presence of adjacent labs.

The building is constructed in a steel frame with a unitized curtain wall, atop a stone and channel glass clad base. The use of stone is informed by the materiality of the original 1900s City College campus to the North. It is designed to LEED Gold standards and incorporates many sustainability features.

Jury comments. The split system, conceptually clear and realistic, is beautifully conveyed in the excellent diagrams. A strong, intriguing, but lucid work of architecture, despite a certain coldness of character.

This is a bold and beautiful solution to a complicated program.

Photo Credit: David Sundberg/Esto

The new Hunter’s Point Campus is a building shaped equally by its setting and by its program. The site for the school is adjacent to the new Hunter’s Point South Waterfront Park and offers spectacular views to the East River and the Manhattan skyline.

We inflected the normative boxy volume by carving slices out of the envelope. The ground level is recessed on the north and the south, defining distinct building entries. Above the first floor the building is clad in dark iron-spot brick with a sheen and tone that change dramatically in concert with the light of the day. Vibrant orange metal panels line the slices into the brick cladding. Two incisions mark the entrances, and two rise to sculpt a top-floor terrace, which reaches out to views west.

The site and the program for the building offered opportunities not only for form but for investigation into the qualities that hew to any work of architecture: identity and cohesion. The institution as a whole and the independent learning environments within are distinct yet interwoven.

At once solid and open, non-symmetrical and balanced, the unified figure of the school is energetic and active. The orientation and configuration of the structure respond to intangible qualities of light and view as well as to tangible objectives; light in particular is an active element of the program.

Jury comments. The light slots and slits that cut into this building create exciting interventions in what might otherwise be a dull place. They lighten, invigorate and open up all sorts of spatial and environmental possibilities. A dramatically massed building that takes advantage of its unique surroundings.

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30

New Construction

R

Renovations/Additions

Award

Award of Distinction

Public School 330Q Queens, New York Murphy Burnham & Buttrick Architects New York, New York

Onondaga Community College, Academic II Addition Syracuse, New York CannonDesign Grand Island, New York

Photo Credit: Ty Cole Photography

Photo Credit: Tim Wilkes Photography

Public School 330Q is a new 65,000 square foot, four-story Pre-K through 5th grade elementary school. The building is constructed of precast concrete panels, brick and curtain wall and has four stories and a basement. The use of Architectural pre-cast concrete panels as the primary exterior wall material allowed for faster construction and provided opportunities for decorative and formal architectural expression.

A new music building at Onondaga Community College contributes much more to the campus than performance venues and rehearsal space. The building lays across the Furnace Brook Gorge, a 60-footdeep fissure dividing the campus. Physically connected to both Ferrante Hall, a classroom building and the Gordon Student Center, the “bridge building” creates an indoor, weather-protected connection among several key campus facilities, uniting the east and west campuses and connects the campus spine on the south with public, staff and student parking to the north.

A glass enclosed gymnatorium straddling the basement and ground floor brings light into the basement, affords views into and through the building and invites pedestrians to engage with the life of the school.

The project was designed to meet Green School Guidelines set by the NYC School Construction Authority and is LEED Certified Equivalent.

Glass curtain wall at the stairs affords views of the World’s Fairgrounds, the body shop across the street or jets taking off from LaGuardia Airport. Double height spaces with art in them enable children to discover sculpture on their own and door portholes at appropriate heights provide children with privileged views not afforded adults.

We combined common spaces to create a synergistic community space, ideal for bringing together the PS330 community and facilitating large neighborhood-wide events. This provides opportunities to broaden the use of the school by the greater community.

Jury comments. It is so airy light and beautiful that it must be a great place in which to learn and socialize. Exterior is all business while interior is playful, joyous, bright and encourages fellowship and scholarship. Interiors nicely and efficiently weave together with a beautifully lit, multi-level interplay. Kids must love this place!

Use of bridge construction materials and techniques was essential in achieving the architectural vision. Three two-story, 200-foot trusses support the building incorporated some of the largest rolled-steel elements available. Structural steel elements and connections are embraced in the architectural space design. The LEED gold facility encourages an integrative approach to music by providing a single facility for the entire music school. Music department administration, production, teaching, research and support spaces all live within the bridge’s body.

The two-story addition affirms OCC’s commitment to growing its arts programs, cultivating its music curricula and enhancing the cultural environment both on campus and in the community. Conceived as a teaching facility with outreach to community organizations in need of performance venues, the new building encourages an integrative approach to music by providing facilities for the entire music school, including administration, production, teaching, research and support spaces.

Jury comments: Despite the narrow tight corridor, this building stands as uniquely powerful and dramatic amongst all of the entries in all three categories. Using music as a “bridge” between academic interests is such a creative way to inspire the very idea of architecture.

Spectacular connector solution across the most challenging terrain of all the submissions this year. Truly inspiring and professional.

Thank you

Excelsior Awards Program for Public Architecture Jury

Jury Chair: Professor Patrick J. Quinn, FAIA, FAAR, FRSA, Institute Professor Emeritus & former Dean School of Architecture, RPI Troy, NY Jury Members: James A. D’Aloisio, PE,SECB Principal Klepper, Hahn & Hyatt Engineers Syracuse,NY

Award Queens Museum Queens, New York Grimshaw Architects New York, New York Architect

Ammann and Whitney New York, New York Architect of Record Photo Credit: David Sundberg/Esto

The renovation and expansion of the Queens Museum brings new programming opportunities, heightened visibility and an elegant fusion of the old and new to the institution’s historic New York City Building, the only surviving structure from the 1939 World’s Fair. The carefully-crafted design addressed the need to attract the attention from passersby in the park and motorists on the nearby highway, and to create open, lightfilled galleries capable of displaying a wide variety of media while remaining flexible enough to accommodate museum visitors and special events.

Visible from the adjacent Grand Central Parkway, the renovated west entry plaza invites visitors with a bold new entry and new lighting. A sculptural metal entry canopy punctuates a series of glass panels t hat span the length of the building, distinguishing this new west façade Inside, a new suite of six galleries surrounds a central large works gallery, allowing for concurrent exhibits and flexible curatorial choices. A lightdiffusing lantern, composed of glass ribs that appear to float beneath a large skylight, marks the central gallery. Known for its educational outreach and community engagement, the Queens Museum expansion includes several new classrooms and support spaces.

Located in Flushing Meadows Corona Park, the Queens Museum’s new transparent design, influenced by windows and skylights that introduce natural light, creates a bright, welcoming institution for the local community, while reducing the need for additional electric lighting. Many locations in the facility allow visitors to see outside, opening up the museum to the park.

Jury comments: The use of daylight gives a new airiness to the interior and the complexity of the main entrance space. It is enticing and accessible in every sense of the word. The renovation was done with proper homage paid to the iconic site that the building is located on, and it relates to its surroundings inside and out.

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James Jamieson, RA Capitol Architect NYS Office of General Services Albany, NY

Stephen F. Reilly, AIA, Leed AP Lacey Thaler Reilly Wilson Architecture & Preservation, LLP Albany, NY

Jeanine M. Thompson, President J.M. Thompson, Landscape Architecture, PLLC Albany, NY

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Excelsior Awards for public architecture

The three Professional Awards honor excellence in practice and advocacy of design in NYS public architecture. These awards are named after New Yorkers who prominently served New Yorkers in public service.

The Nelson Rockefeller Award recognizes licensed architects employed in the public sector in New York State whose work on projects within their jurisdiction has furthered the cause of design excellence in public architecture. This year, Paul McDonnell, AIA, Director, Buffalo-Western NY AIA, is the honoree for his work in the Buffalo at the Buffalo Public Schools Director of Facilities.

The Daniel Patrick Moynihan Award recognizes public officials or individuals who, through their efforts, have furthered the public’s awareness and/or appreciation of design excellence in public architecture. This year, Stanford Lipsey is the honoree for his preservation of architectural landmarks in Buffalo.

The Henry Hobson Richardson Award recog-

nizes AIA members licensed in NYS and practicing in the private sector who have made a significant contribution to the quality of NYS public architecture and who have established a portfolio of accomplishments. This year, Jack Esterson, AIA, is the honoree for longstanding passion for public projects around the Metropolitan New York area.

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