AIA Design Awards Display At HCH Library

A note from the American Institute of Architects (AIA) in Connecticut:

The AIA Connecticut Design Awards Exhibit will be on display at the Henry Carter Hull Library for the month of July.

AIA Connecticut, a non-profit association of architects and allied design professionals, announces the traveling exhibit of its 2010 annual Design Awards program, an annual comprehensive program that recognizes design excellence in projects in Connecticut or by Connecticut architects.

This year’s awards and honorable mention were given to sixteen projects in five categories: Built, Residential, Preservation, Unbuilt and Architecture: the Encompassing Art.

Jurors were Pamela Hawkes, FAIA, Ann Beha Architects, Boston; David Manfredi, FAIA, Elkus Manfredi Architects, Boston; and Anthony Vidler, Associate AIA, Dean, Department of Architecture, the Cooper Union, New York City.

Awards in the Built Projects category were given to:

Fairfield Jesuit Community Center, Fairfield University, Fairfield, Connecticut by Gray Organschi Architecture, New Haven. The center reflects an intuitive connection between the mission of calm, meditative, and community spirit with a plan that reflects spatial balance between individual and communal life. The building captures views; the use of natural materials is confident and tranquil. The jury cited this project for special commendation.

North Branford Intermediate School, North Branford, Connecticut by Newman Architects, LLC, New Haven. In this renovation and addition, the architects have used a careful combination of composition and scale change to bread up and individualize what was a mundane 60’s school. Careful use of materials indicates the shifting functions inside and creates an identity for each teaching unit.

Rogers International Baccalaureate Environmental Magnet School, Stamford, Connecticut by Tai Soo Kim Partners, Hartford. This pre-K to 8th grade school delivers on its promise of studying the environment on all scales. It produces the micro environments which are the subject of its mission. The building makes great use of recycled materials and sits on a reclaimed brown field site. The jury commends this project for its connection of mission, form and materials.

Storage Barn, Washington, Connecticut by Gray Organschi Architecture, New Haven. This deceptively simple project is both building and sculpture in the landscape. It celebrates a simple and mundane activity and demonstrates the opportunity for great achievement in every commission. The jury also applauds its sustainable strategies.

Volo Aviation, Stratford, Connecticut by Beinfield Architecture PC, Norwalk. This is an extraordinarily simple hangar for five small jets. The architects have used a combination of industrial materials to an extraordinary effect, capturing interior light and bringing translucency to the interiors.

Five Residential Projects were given awards:

44PL, Greenwich, Connecticut by Joeb + Partners Architects, LLC, Greenwich. This single family residence sited on a series of long retaining walls takes the form of a traditional New England house, and by abstraction and use of materials takes its vernacular inspiration to a heightened level of sculptural modernity. The architect sustained the rigor of scale throughout, enabling a considerably sized house to takes its place easily on this site.

Cottage, Guilford, Connecticut by Gray Organschi Architecture, New Haven. This small guest house, with its green roof, takes the simplicity of a cube and the vernacular of New England geometry and abstracts into an elegant play of cubic and diagonal geometrics. The jury was impressed with the spare use of materials that reinforces the simplicity o the form. It sits on the site lightly and with grace.

Lanterns, Westport, Connecticut by Gray Organschi Architecture, New Haven. In this group of garden pavilions, the architects have achieved, with extreme simplicity and economy of materials, a flexible set of seating and living shelters. These combine to make space. These objects are both furniture and architecture luminous at night and textured by day. The fabrication of panels is ingenious. The jury was very impressed.

Spiral House, Old Greenwich, Connecticut, by Joeb + Partners Architects, LLC, Greenwich. Beautifully drawn and equally well executed, this house, poised on the edge of Long Island Sound, traces a spiral from entry to upper chambers. Poised like a heron, the house distills its vernacular and modernist sensibilities in a spare aesthetic of calm and elegance.

The Bridge House, Kent, Connecticut by Joeb + Partners Architects, LLC, Greenwich. Set in a dramatic landscape, 300 feet above Kent falls, this house is poised carefully on its site, allowing the site to flow through the house. The jury was fascinated with the play of warm and cool texture and color. The house also responds to the seasons with carefully framed views, it also provides intricate and warm interior viewing chambers.

Watersheds, Coastal Rhode Island by Roger Ferris + Partners, Westport, Connecticut. This series of simple gable forms is manipulated to capture sunlight and views. The jury was excited by the elegant and spare detailing and was delighted with the contrast of taut, long form and lantern ends. These forms feel so natural on this site.

One Unbuilt Project received an award:

Mill River Park Canopy, New Haven by Gray Organschi Architecture, New Haven. Using a series of delicate experiments with the topological characteristics of metal, the proponents have created a delicately woven canopy along the river walk that elegantly illustrates a stitched connection between river and city.

Two awards were given to Preservation Projects:

The Betty Ruth and Milton B. Hollander Foundation Center, Hartford, Connecticut by Crosskey Architects, LLC, Hartford. The jury applauded the intent of the developer and the ingenuity of the architect in preserving this historic Neo- Colonial building and the important interior details of public areas. The effort renders the building a new life as mixed, retail/residential use.

Jonathan Edwards College, Yale University, New Haven by Newman Architects LLC, New Haven. The jury recognized this project’s extremely sensitive renovation of the interior spaces of a Gothic Revival college. It introduces a range of new community and educational uses and contemporary services while preserving a balanced contrast of old and new.

There were two Architecture: the Encompassing Art awards:

Chapel, Fairfield Jesuit Community Center, Fairfield University, Fairfield, Connecticut By Gray Organschi Architecture, New Haven. This submission truly fulfills the intent of this category, making connection from detail to the whole. It rescues damaged European beech from the site to fabricate altar furniture in such a way as to preserve the grain of wood and at the same time to celebrate the meditative simplicity of the whole.

Firestone Pavilion, Longmeadow, Massachusetts by Newick Architects, New Haven. The jury praised the sensitive handling of intersecting walls, beams and planes and the abstract sculptural quality of enclosures, such that it was reminded of a composition by the sculptor Donald Judd.

AIA Connecticut is a non-profit association of architects and allied design professionals located at 370 James Street, New Haven, 06513. For further information, call 203-865-2195 or go to www.aiact.org.