An adaptive reuse to create LEED Platinum offices in Georgia, an Ohio park that honors veterans, and a grand national plaza are among the seven projects named winners of the 2013 Great Places Awards. The Environmental Design and Research Association recognize professional and scholarly excellence in environmental design, with special attention paid to the relationship between physical form and human activity or experience.
2013 Place Design Award Recipients
1315 Peachtree Street, Atlanta
Perkins + Will
This LEED Platinum project transformed a 1986 office structure into a "living laboratory" and educational tool for sustainable design. Rigorous research was conducted in pre- and post-occupancy evaluations.
Dublin Grounds of Remembrance
PLANT Architect Inc.
Located in Dublin, Ohio, this one-acre park honors the service of veterans and celebrates the city's heritage. The project examined how architecture can be used to "frame, reveal, and engage the landscape while connecting people to the site and navigating their experience of place." Designers chose not to provide a traditional monument, instead promoting the acts of walking and social gathering.
Place Planning Award Recipients
Northerly Island Park Framework Plan
SmithGroupJJR and Studio Gang Architects
This plan, for an island linked to Chicago's existing lakefront Museum Campus, extends green and sustainable design principles to the waterfont in an ecologically driven plan. The framework establishes zones ranging from urban/active to natural/passive, and includes woodland and waterfront ecology.
Unified Ground: National Mall Competition, Union Square
Gustafson Guthrie Nichol
This plan overlays and enriches the Union Square plaza in the nation's capital with spaces for informal activities. New features and textures respond to the underlying natural landform, daily patterns of movement, and the diverse needs and desires of the users. The plan extends the formal Mall axis to Union Square, including a pool, plaza, and additional pathways.
Place Research Award Recipient
Pop Up City: Temporary Use Strategies for a Sinking City
Cleveland Urban Design Collaborative
Pop Up City is an action-based research program that implements temporary projects as a means of urban reinvention. The research is part of the graduate architecture curriculum at Kent State University, encompassing design-build exercises that culminate in deployment and assessment of temporary projects. (The photo is of Hipp Deck, an outdoor performance venue temporarily created at a parking deck that was once the site of the city's famous Hippodrome Theater.)
Place Book Award Recipient
"Urban Composition," by Mark Childs
This book, which addresses designers but also serves as a teaching tool for urban design, discusses how architects, landscape architects, civil engineers, public artists, city council members, and other participants can caollaborate to create environmentally sound, socially resilient, and "soul enlivening" settlements.
Placemaking Award: Providence
WaterFire Providence
WaterFire Providence, a nonprofit arts organizaton, manages an evolving public art installation of music, floating fires, art, and dance along three rivers in downtown Providence. The project continually changes in response to citizen participation and ongoing expansion of the river park system.
Jurors for the 2013 Great Places Awards:
- Julian Bonder, Principal, Wodiczko + Bonder
- Gayle Epp, Partner, EJP Consulting
- Valerie Fletcher, Executive Director, Institute for Human Centered Design
- Peter M. Hourihan, LEED®AP, Principal & Director of Research, Cannon Design
- Mikyoung Kim, Principal & Design Director, Mikyoung Kim Design.
Related Stories
Sponsored | Glass and Glazing | Oct 1, 2021
Seizing the Daylight with BIPV Glass
Glass has always been an idea generator. Now, it’s also a clean energy generator.
Architects | Sep 30, 2021
Riding the great AEC resignation wave
More people than ever are reconsidering what work and career mean. What can AEC firms do to recruit and retain workers in this changing workplace environment? Karl Feldman, Partner with Hinge Marketing, discusses ideas and strategies with BD+C's John Caulfield in this exclusive interview for HorizonTV.
Glass and Glazing | Sep 30, 2021
Plans move forward on Central Place Sydney, duel towers with an AI-driven façade system
SOM and Fender Katsalidis are designing the project.
Architects | Sep 28, 2021
Hoffmann Architects Welcomes Travis Heim as Senior Staff Architect
Hoffmann Architects, an architecture and engineering firm specializing in the rehabilitation of building exteriors, announces that Travis Heim has joined the New York office as Senior Staff Architect.
AEC Business Innovation | Sep 28, 2021
Getting diversity, equity, and inclusion going in AEC firms
As a professional services organization built on attracting the best and brightest talent, VIATechnik relies on finding new ways to do just that. Here are some tips that we’ve learned through our diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I) journey.
Multifamily Housing | Sep 22, 2021
Designing for the ‘missing middle’ in multifamily housing
Multifamily housing expert Patrick Winters, AIA, discusses a neglected segment of the market: the "missing middle."
Multifamily Housing | Sep 22, 2021
11 notable multifamily projects to debut in 2021
A residence for older LGBTQ+ persons, a P3 student housing building, and a converted masonic lodge highlight the multifamily developments to debut this year.
Data Centers | Sep 22, 2021
Wasted energy from data centers could power nearby buildings
A Canadian architecture firm comes up with a concept for a community that’s part of a direct-current microgrid.
Hotel Facilities | Sep 22, 2021
Will hotel developers finally embrace modular construction?
Last May, MiTek, a construction software and building services company that’s part of Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway conglomerate, formed a partnership with Danny Forster & Architecture to promote modular design and construction.
Arenas | Sep 20, 2021
LA Clippers unveil $1.8 billion Intuit Dome
AECOM is the lead designer for the project.