The American Institute of Architects (AIA) has selected the ten recipients of the 2014 Small Project Awards. The AIA Small Project Awards Program, now in its 11th year, was established to recognize small-project practitioners for the high quality of their work and to promote excellence in small-project design.
This award program emphasizes the excellence of small-project design and strives to raise public awareness of the value and design excellence that architects bring to projects, no matter the limits of size and scope.
Award recipients are categorized into three groups:
Category 1: A small project construction, object, work of environmental art or architectural design element up to $150,000 in construction cost.
Category 2: A small project construction, up to $1,500,000 in construction cost.
Category 3: A small project construction, object, work of environmental art, or architectural design less than 5,000-square-foot constructed by the architect.
Check out the winning projects (all images and descriptions courtesy AIA):
Category 1
Fashion[ING] Objects; Austin, Texas
Matt Fajkus Architecture, LLC
This architectural design for a fashion show runway backdrop incorporates rigid and fluid layers, establishing a tension between a grid system and an amorphous organic form. The architect began with the idea of the backdrop as a tool for pattern, light, and shadow. Looking to everyday objects, paper-covered wire hangers, a surrogate for the shoulder, associated with the clothing and thus the human body; these objects, although simple, can be extraordinary when arrayed by the thousands. The object itself falls away in favor of an ethereal collective whole.
Head in the Clouds Pavilion; New York City
StudioKCA
Photo credit: Chuck Choi/courtesy of AIA
Head in the Clouds Pavilion on New York's Governors Island comes out of the desire to create a 'place to dream in the city of dreams'. Made from 53,780 recycled plastic bottles - the amount, thrown away in New York City in 1 hour - it is a space where visitors can enter into and contemplate the light and color filtering through the 'cloud' from the inside, out. Used empties were repurposed, with gallon jug 'pillows' forming the exterior, while water bottles filled with water line the interior so that no foundation was needed.
Pure Tension Pavilion; Milan, Italy
Synthesis Design + Architecture
Photo Credit: Fabric Images/Volvo Italy/courtesy of AIA
The Pure Tension Pavilion is a lightweight, rapidly deployable, tensioned membrane structure and portable charging station commissioned to showcase the Volvo V60 hybrid/electric car. The entire structure flat-packs to fit in the trunk of the car, assembles in 45 minutes, and charges a fully depleted V60 in 12 hours.
This experimental structure was developed through a process of rigorous research and development that investigated methods of associative modeling, dynamic mesh relaxation, geometric rationalization, solar incidence analysis, and material performance. The pavilion is an experimental structure that, similar to a concept car, is a working prototype that speculates on the future of personal mobility and alternative energy sources. The pavilion pushes boundaries at all levels, from structural performance to sustainability and portability.
Starlight; New York City
Cooper Joseph Studio
Photo Credit: RUSH Design/Eduard Hueber/ArchPhoto Inc./courtesy of AIA
This site-specific light sculpture marks a new era for the Museum of the City of New York, igniting the majestic circular stair at the heart of the museum’s historic interior. Conceived as a perfect circle in elevation, the sculpture is in dialogue with stair so that old and new are joined in one experience. As visitors move up and down between floors, a dynamic array of radiating patterns of light points is generated by the optical effects inherent in the geometry of a uniform spatial grid.
Category Two
Ground, Yale University; New Haven, CT
Bentel and Bentel Architects
Photo Credit: Daniel Stark/courtesy of AIA
The new Ground café at Yale's Marcel Breuer-designed Becton School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) serves not only to create social cohesion among faculty and students of the engineering school, but also to encourage interaction between and among members of other departments in the university.
In the design, the firm engaged the unadorned poured-concrete volume of this former seminar room by layering a palette of walnut planks, perforated aluminum, and cleft bluestone over the walls, floor, and ceiling of the space. The original concrete surfaces are intentionally visible through, and are highlighted by, the veils of the material intervention out of respect for Breuer's unique exploration in his design of the textural possibilities of a single material.
Redaction House; Delafield, Wisconsin
Johnsen Schmaling Architects
Photo Credit: Johnsen Schmaling Architects/courtesy of AIA
A compact home that occupies a suburban infill site widely considered too small and too confined to accommodate a house for a family of five and provide acceptable levels of privacy and views. A series of spatial voids within the building volume organize the program, starting with a linear entry courtyard along a brick wall whose decreasing perforation begins the process of visual redaction and leads to the transparent front door.
Inside, floor-to-ceiling apertures alternate with solid walls, taking advantage of sightlines that are desirable and screen those that are not. The rooms are grouped around a two-story living hall, where the apertures are stacked vertically to frame views of the sky and the bluff’s deciduous foliage.
Small House in an Olive Grove; Geyserville, CA
Cooper Joseph Studio
Photo Credit: Elliott Kaufman Photography/courtesy of AIA
The owners of this one bedroom house, located on an agricultural property wanted an energy-efficient building that utilized views of the surrounding valley and integrated with the rustic countryside. At a mere 850-square feet, the house is anchored into the steep hillside with a series of concrete retaining walls.
The site strategy incorporates cascading decks embracing the slope, relating the inside and outside at every level. Zinc with redwood screens, form a warm gray palette that works with the northern California seasonal foliage. The same soft tones bathe the interior spaces with limestone floors and stained oak cabinetry.
Topo House; Blue Mounds, Wisconsin
Johnsen Schmaling Architects
Echoing the dramatic surface deformations that occur when wind blows over the crops and grasses of the surrounding prairie, the building skin, a high-performance ventilated rainscreen system with concrete fiber panels, is organized by 190 individually shaped, black-anodized aluminum fins of interrelated contracting and expanding shapes. Depending on the time of the day and the angle from which they are viewed, the fins create a constantly changing veil whose shifting geometry subverts the volumetric simplicity of the house itself.
Category Three
Fall House; Big Sur, California
Fougeron Architecture
Photo Credit: Joe Fletcher Photography/courtesy of AIA
This three-bedroom vacation home, on Big Sur’s spectacular south coast, is anchored in the natural beauty and power of this California landscape. The design strategy embeds the building within the land, creating a structure inseparable from its context. The site offers dramatic views: a 250-foot drop to the Pacific Ocean both along the bluff and the western exposure. Yet it demands a form more complex than a giant picture window.
Drought resistant and native vegetation is specifically intended reduce soil erosion and facilitates new habitats for local wildlife. A vegetated roof reduces the aerial visual footprint of the building and provides added thermal mass / insulation for the occupied space below.
Flip House; San Francisco, California
Fougeron Architecture
Photo Credit: Joe Fletcher Photography/courtesy of AIA
The architects were challenged with reconnecting an San Francisco home to its striking landscape, light, and views and transform its confusing program with a new modernist aesthetic. The solution consisted of a design that completely flipped the home’s façade and interior spaces, reinventing its typology and capturing all advantages of its natural and urban site.
Like many San Francisco homes, this one poorly integrated its many levels with each other and with its sloping topography and solar orientation. Reversing its reading, the award recipient recast the back of the house as its primary façade with a faceted, custom-built glass wall.
The jury for the Small Project Awards includes: Linda Reeder, AIA (Chair), Linda Reeder Architecture; Rene Gonzalez, AIA, Rene Gonzalez Architect; Craig Scott, AIA, IwamotoScott Architecture; Deb Silber, Fine Homebuilding Magazine and Lisa Tilder, AIA, Ohio State University.
For more, visit AIA's Small Project Awards landing page.
Related Stories
| Aug 11, 2010
Design firms slash IT spending in 2009
Over half of architecture, engineering, and environmental consulting firms (55%) are budgeting less for information technology in 2009 than they did in 2008, according to a new report from ZweigWhite. The 2009 Information Technology Survey reports that firms' 2009 IT budgets are a median of 3.3% of net service revenue, down from 3.6% in 2008. Firms planning to decrease spending are expected to do so by a median of 20%.
| Aug 11, 2010
A glimmer of hope amid grim news as construction employment falls in most states, metro areas
The construction employment picture brightened slightly with 18 states adding construction jobs from April to May according to a new analysis of data released today by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). However, construction employment overall continued to decline, noted Ken Simonson, the chief economist for the Associated General Contractors of America.
| Aug 11, 2010
Thom Mayne unveils 'floating cube' design for the Perot Museum of Nature and Science in Dallas
Calling it a “living educational tool featuring architecture inspired by nature and science,” Pritzker Prize Laureate Thom Mayne and leaders from the Museum of Nature & Science unveiled the schematic designs and building model for the Perot Museum of Nature & Science at Victory Park. Groundbreaking on the approximately $185 million project will be held later this fall, and the Museum is expected to open by early 2013.
| Aug 11, 2010
SOM's William F. Baker awarded Fritz Leonhardt Prize for achievement in structural engineering
In recognition of his engineering accomplishments, which include many of the tallest skyscrapers of our time, William F. Baker received the coveted Fritz Leonhardt Prize in Stuttgart, Germany. He is the first American to receive the prize.
| Aug 11, 2010
American Concrete Institute forms technical committee on BIM for concrete structures
The American Concrete Institute (ACI) announces the formation of a new technical committee on Building Information Modeling (BIM) of Concrete Structures.
| Aug 11, 2010
10 tips for mitigating influenza in buildings
Adopting simple, common-sense measures and proper maintenance protocols can help mitigate the spread of influenza in buildings. In addition, there are system upgrades that can be performed to further mitigate risks. Trane Commercial Systems offers 10 tips to consider during the cold and flu season.
| Aug 11, 2010
Reed Construction Data files corporate espionage lawsuit against McGraw-Hill Construction Dodge
Reed Construction Data (RCD), a leading construction information provider and a wholly-owned subsidiary of Reed Elsevier (NYSE:RUK, NYSE:ENL), today filed suit in federal court against McGraw-Hill Construction Dodge, a unit of The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. (NYSE:MHP). The suit charges that Dodge has unlawfully accessed confidential and trade secret information from RCD since 2002 by using a series of fake companies to pose as RCD customers.
| Aug 11, 2010
Jacobs, HOK top BD+C's ranking of the 75 largest state/local government design firms
A ranking of the Top 75 State/Local Government Design Firms based on Building Design+Construction's 2009 Giants 300 survey. For more Giants 300 rankings, visit http://www.BDCnetwork.com/Giants
| Aug 11, 2010
Brad Pitt’s foundation unveils 14 duplex designs for New Orleans’ Lower 9th Ward
Gehry Partners, William McDonough + Partners, and BNIM are among 14 architecture firms commissioned by Brad Pitt's Make It Right foundation to develop duplex housing concepts specifically for rebuilding the Lower 9th Ward in New Orleans. All 14 concepts were released yesterday.
| Aug 11, 2010
NAVFAC releases guidelines for sustainable reconstruction of Navy facilities
The guidelines provide specific guidance for installation commanders, assessment teams, estimators, programmers and building designers for identifying the sustainable opportunities, synergies, strategies, features and benefits for improving installations following a disaster instead of simply repairing or replacing them as they were prior to the disaster.