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
| Nov 10, 2011
Suffolk Construction awarded MBTA transit facility and streetscape project
The 21,000-sf project will feature construction of a cable-stayed pedestrian bridge over Ocean Avenue, an elevated plaza deck above Wonderland MBTA Station, a central plaza, and an at-grade pedestrian crossing over Revere Beach Boulevard
| Nov 10, 2011
Thornton Tomasetti’s Joseph and Choi to co-chair the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat’s Outrigger Design Working Group
Design guide will describe in detail the application of outriggers within the lateral load resisting systems of tall buildings, effects on building behavior and recommendations for design.
| Nov 9, 2011
Lincoln Center Pavilion wins national architecture and engineering award
The project team members include owner Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, New York; design architect and interior designer of the restaurant, Diller Scofidio + Renfro, New York; executive architect, FXFOWLE, New York; and architect and interior designer of the film center, Rockwell Group, New York; structural engineer Arup (AISC Member), New York; and general contractor Turner Construction Company (AISC Member), New York.
| Nov 9, 2011
Sika Sarnafil Roof Recycling Program recognized by Society of Plastics Engineers
Program leads the industry in recovering and recycling roofing membrane into new roofing products.
| Nov 9, 2011
American Standard Brands joins the Hospitality Sustainable Purchasing Consortium
American Standard will collaborate with other organizations to build an industry-wide sustainability performance index.
| Nov 8, 2011
Transforming a landmark coastal resort
Originally built in 1973, the building had received several alterations over the years but the progressive deterioration caused by the harsh salt water environment had never been addressed.
| Nov 8, 2011
WEB EXCLUSIVE: Moisture-related failures in agglomerated floor tiles
Agglomerated tiles offer an appealing appearance similar to natural stone at a lower cost. To achieve successful installations, manufacturers should provide design data for moisture-related dimensional changes, specifiers should require in-situ moisture testing similar to those used for other flooring materials, and the industry should develop standards for fabrication and installation of agglomerated tiles.
| Nov 8, 2011
$11 million business incubator Florida Innovation Hub at the University of Florida completed by Charles Perry Partners, Inc.
The facility houses the UF Office of Technology Licensing, UF Tech Connect, other entities, and more than 30 startup technology tenants.
| Nov 8, 2011
Designer joins Holabird & Root
Clifton has been awarded numerous awards throughout her career, including two AIA Chicago Design Excellence Awards.