The 2018 AIA-SWO Design Awards ceremony was held at the Ford Alumni Center on the University of Oregon campus. The pre-event, well-stocked cash-bar was very popular! (Photo by AIA-SWO)
Big thanks to the Design Awards Committee—led by Jenna Fribley, AIA—which assembled an outstanding group of jurors to evaluate the design submissions for this year’s awards program:
Gary Aquilina, AIA – Principal, CAS Architects
Ruth Baleiko, AIA – Partner, Miller Hull
Robert Hastings, FAIA (jury chair) – Agency Architect, TriMet
Cassandra Keller – Principal, Clark Keller
Carrie Strickland, FAIA – Principal, Works Progress Architecture
2018 AIASWO DA Juror Intros from frank visconti on Vimeo.
The jury selected a total of 11 projects to receive awards. Of these, two are student projects, four are Citation Award winners, two received Merit Awards, and three are Honor Award recipients (the AIA’s highest commendation).
Speranza Architecture + Urban Design was the evening’s big winner. The jury bestowed three of the Citation Awards and one Honor Award on the young firm. Principal and founder Phil Speranza, AIA—also an assistant professor at the UO College of Design, and a relatively recent transplant from the east coast—is someone to keep an eye on as his firm leaves its mark on the local architectural scene in the years to come.
Past AIA-SWO president (2016) Stan Honn, AIA emceed the event. Current president Frank Visconti, AIA presented the awards to the recipients, while jury chair Bob Hastings, FAIA shared some of the jury’s comments for all the winning entries.
Here is the list of the 2018 AIA-SWO Design Awards Program recipients:
Honor Awards:
UO
Student Recreation Center
Poticha Architects
Owner/Client: University of Oregon
Location: Eugene, OR
Jury Comments:
“A wonderful achievement in unifying a series of existing buildings. The design utilized creative strategies to connect a disparate set of buildings who were built at different times, and with different program, materials, and construction. In particular the ceiling treatments created both a sense of continuity, while also providing for individual program activities. Strong visual connections between spaces and activities improved the sense of the community. The jury was impressed how active and contemplative spaces could be accommodated without compromise.
“Environmental performance of the buildings’ systems actually enhanced the interior activities, while providing access and exposure of the external environment. The building’s external elevations, materials, and lighting create strong connections to the University urban design and enhance its qualities.”
Arts
and Technology Academy
Owner/Client: 4J Eugene School
District
Location: Eugene, OR
Jury Comments:
“A fantastic renovation of an existing school that interprets a new pedagogy for STEM curriculum with a new organization for this middle school. The result feels like a completely new institution that embraces open and transparent spaces for learning. New relationships are skillfully organized both in plan and section by providing places of learning for classes and well as small groups and individual spaces.
“The result is a unifying whole of existing spaces, materials, and structure with the new additions that create a complete translation for the school. Particular skill was demonstrated in the architectural treatments that unify existing structure, materials, and spaces with the new construction. The end result is both robust and delicate…elegant and durable.”
Push
Pull House
Owner/Client: Jeff & Victoria
Wilson-Charles
Location: Veneta, OR
Jury Comments:
“While simple and elegant in plan the house’s sections create a vibrant juxtaposition. Careful attention to the use of volumes for lighting, heating, and cooling results in poetic special contrasts. The use of common materials…wood, plaster, concrete, and glass…have been masterfully orchestrated to create un-common spaces.
“The jury commends the building’s craftsmanship, especially considering the modest construction cost, and how it accentuates the power of well design spaces. The overall effect creates a beautiful relationship between inner space and the surrounding forest environment.”
Merit Awards:
Roosevelt
Middle School
Owner/Client: Eugene School District
4J
Location: Eugene, OR
Jury Comments:
“The plan of the school strongly reflects its mission to provide places of learning, social interaction, and teacher – student engagement. Transparency between small group, corridors, and vertical transition directly correlate with the school’s educational purpose. Throughout the interior, glazing and openings are arranged to promote both the sense of connectedness, and how people come together.
“The jury commends how this school helps students transition from child to young adult, by encouraging exploration and discovery in a wonderful learning environment. In particular, the jury was impressed by the thoughtful use of glazing, color, lighting, and wall materials to create a sense of permanence and transition.”
1203
Willamette
Owner/Client: 1203 Willamette, LLC
Location: Eugene, OR
Jury Comments:
“The adaptive reuse of a 1940’s era furniture store with limited relationship to the life of downtown Eugene, is a terrific case study of urban revitalization. The design decision to use removal rather than insertion proved to be an excellent strategy. By engaging both levels of the original building, it completely transforms the streetscape and greatly contributes to the City’s livability.
“The jury commends the use of the building’s elements of wood structure, open fenestrations, and authentic materials to create lively interior and exterior spaces. In particular, the jury recognizes the careful proportions, scale of spaces, use of elemental materials, interior and exterior lighting, vertical circulation and layering of movement.”
Citation Awards:
Roseburg
Forest Products
Owner/Client: Roseburg Forest
Projects
Location: Springfield, OR
Jury Comments:
“What could have been another example of treating large box buildings as part of our disposable society instead became a wonderful revitalization. The plan to organize the perimeter of the triangulated building into open offices, while enlivening the center with gathering and meeting spaces, resulted in a compete transformation. The clear use of materials, color, natural and artificial lighting, and furnishings is exemplary. What is especially powerful is the creation of a central space that promotes and engenders equity.”
Eugene
Public Food Market
Owner/Client: Three Muses
Location: Eugene, OR
Jury Comments:
“This proposed adaptive reuse of the former EWEB building could be a significant part of the City’s downtown transformation. This project proposal includes the leveraging of the existing building’s significant elements (most notably the bow-string trusses), but equally important is the programmatic role of a year-round, and night & day, public food market.
“The jury’s challenge is to incorporate the proposed new tower, complete with LED lighting, as an urban marker for the Market. It should contribute greatly to the Market’s character, the downtown’s ‘Great Loop’ initiative, and linking to the City’s neighborhoods.”
Birch
Fircrest House
Owner/Client: Philip Speranza
Location: Eugene, OR
Jury Comments:
“While bold in form, the strength of this house design derives from careful analysis of its site and environmental factors. In plan, section, and elevation the house’s design is consistent in its formal response.
“The jury is still out on the proposed exterior siding material, window size and placements, and site material treatments. These need careful consideration to achieve a holistic expression of distant and internal relationships.”
Hult
Center for the Performing Arts Plaza Renovation Study
Owner/Client: City of Eugene
Cultural Services
Location: Eugene, OR
Jury Comments:
“This proposal seeks to enliven the Center’s exterior public space by transforming it into a dynamic series of outdoor spaces, emulating the nature of the Center’s performance hall. However, in this instance the audience becomes the performers. Through careful analysis and gathering of real time data the Plaza would express the qualities of its users.
“The Jury commends the passion and desire to transform this urban space into something truly ‘world class’, and for supporting and contributing to the City’s ‘Great Loop’ initiative.”
Student Awards:
The Arch at Hayward Field
Nicole Giustino, August Lehnert,
& Max Moore
Client: University of Oregon
Location: Eugene, OR
Jury Comments:
- Innovative use of material(wood) to develop an elegant solution to a functional problem.
- Very compelling idea which combines traditional with new state-of-the-art technology.
Sitka Sedge
Benjamin Fuglevand
Client: State of Oregon Visitors
Center
Location: Tillamook County, Oregon
Coast
Jury Comments:
- A modern, approach to farming, and teaching. Simple structure, formal response to climate, very believable in its execution and research. Energy modeling provides the designer with validation of design process and goals set for this work.
- A wonderfully developed scheme; well thought out and with a compelling brief. Excellent backup data and analysis too.
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Design awards programs help us to celebrate what we do as architects. They are evidence our profession aspires to be the best it can be. They elevate the quality of our work by setting the bar high. I know I am not alone in looking forward to the next edition and once again recognizing and celebrating the best work of AIA-Southwestern Oregon member firms.
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