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
| Jul 20, 2014
Why every major U.S. city should be nurturing ‘Innovation Hubs’
Today, more than ever, tech districts are the key to economic growth for metro markets. A new report from the Brookings Institution calls tech hubs the superchargers of innovation economies and creators of highly coveted tech jobs.
| Jul 18, 2014
Contractors warm up to new technologies, invent new management schemes [2014 Giants 300 Report]
“UAV.” “LATISTA.” “CMST.” If BD+C Giants 300 contractors have anything to say about it, these new terms may someday be as well known as “BIM” or “LEED.” Here’s a sampling of what Giant GCs and CMs are doing by way of technological and managerial innovation.
| Jul 18, 2014
Top Construction Management Firms [2014 Giants 300 Report]
Jacobs, Barton Malow, Hill International top Building Design+Construction's 2014 ranking of the largest construction management and project management firms in the United States.
| Jul 18, 2014
Top Contractors [2014 Giants 300 Report]
Turner, Whiting-Turner, Skanska top Building Design+Construction's 2014 ranking of the largest contractors in the United States.
| Jul 18, 2014
Engineering firms look to bolster growth through new services, technology [2014 Giants 300 Report]
Following solid revenue growth in 2013, the majority of U.S.-based engineering and engineering/architecture firms expect more of the same this year, according to BD+C’s 2014 Giants 300 report.
| Jul 18, 2014
Top Engineering/Architecture Firms [2014 Giants 300 Report]
Jacobs, AECOM, Parsons Brinckerhoff top Building Design+Construction's 2014 ranking of the largest engineering/architecture firms in the United States.
| Jul 18, 2014
Top Engineering Firms [2014 Giants 300 Report]
Fluor, Arup, Day & Zimmermann top Building Design+Construction's 2014 ranking of the largest engineering firms in the United States.
| Jul 18, 2014
Top Architecture Firms [2014 Giants 300 Report]
Gensler, Perkins+Will, NBBJ top Building Design+Construction's 2014 ranking of the largest architecture firms in the United States.
| Jul 18, 2014
Top Architecture/Engineering Firms [2014 Giants 300 Report]
Stantec, HOK, and Skidmore, Owings & Merrill top Building Design+Construction's 2014 ranking of the largest architecture/engineering firms in the United States.
| Jul 18, 2014
2014 Giants 300 Report
Building Design+Construction magazine's annual ranking the nation's largest architecture, engineering, and construction firms in the U.S.