The American Institute of Architects (AIA) selected nine recipients of the 2016 Small Project Awards.
Now in its 13th year, the AIA Small Project Awards Program recognizes the work of small-project practitioners and promotes small-project design.
Award recipients are categorized into two groups. Category 1 is small project construction, objects, works of environmental art or architectural design elements up to $150,000 in construction cost. Category 2 is small project construction up to $1.5 million in construction cost.
“With construction budgets regularly running into the tens and hundreds of millions of dollars, it’s important to emphasize the impact smaller projects can have,” said Jury Chair, Marika Snider, AIA. “As architects we strive to provide clients with more than just buildings, but solutions to improve life – these projects highlight this notion.”
The jury for the 2016 Small Project Awards includes: Marika Snider, AIA (Chair), Snider Architecture; Will Bruder, FAIA, Will Bruder Architects; Mira Locher, FAIA, Kajika Architecture; Elizabeth Ranieri, FAIA, Kuth Ranieri and Jonathan Tate, Office Jonathan Tate.
(Click images to enlarge)
Category 1
Photo: Ed Massery, courtesy AIA.
Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh Studio Hive | Pittsburgh | GBBN Architects
The Studio Hive is part of the Teen Zone in the East Liberty Branch of the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh. Made of wood and sound absorbent industrial felt, its creation has contributed to a 350% increase in attendance at the library’s teen programs and events. The design team developed a 3D digital model of the hive, which allowed designers to tune the form and refine it to minimize material waste. The connection to both the remaining library and the street provides teens with a sense of their social context and environment while they occupy a space that is uniquely personal.
Photo: Paul Crosby, courtesy AIA.
Deployable Smocked Porch | Winterset, Iowa | substance architecture
A simple wooden frame defines the small space and supports two porch swings. The smocked screening creates curtains that allow access and provide shade and enclosure. A rectangular opening in the roof allows a shaft of daylight to enter the space. This opening is echoed in the small turf area cut into the floor. The project was designed and constructed adjacent to the courthouse square in Winterset as a pro bono effort to support The Iowa Preservation Alliance. The wood was salvaged from a demolished home, and the labor to sew, fabricate, and construct the space were provided by the design team. As a result, the budget for the project was $900.
Photo: Kevin Scott, courtesy AIA.
wa_sauna | Seattle | goCstudio
This floating sauna, funded through a crowdfunding campaign, functions as a boat that can be moored at a marina or private property and taken out on the open water. The interior is heated by a wood burning stove. As a mobile piece of architecture, wa_sauna is able to engage with people living aboard boats and houseboats as well as the large community of boaters, kayakers, paddle boarders and rowers. It uses a pre-manufactured aluminum frame and floatation system for the deck.
Photo: Nik Nikolov, courtesy AIA.
Weihnacht Huts | Bethlehem, Pennsylvania | NAD
This pro-bono design is for 35 craft exhibit huts for an authentic German Weihnachtsmarkt (open-air Christmas market). The huts feature a steeply-sloped roof designed for snowfall and a ridge line borrowed from traditional Moravian vernacular. With a limited budget for materials ($286 per unit), paired with the necessity for the structures to be taken apart and stored every year, the deck, walls, and roof panels are constructed as single units to be taken apart, transported, and stored flat with ease. The poly-carbonate roof is not only easy to dissemble, but also allows for a large amount of light and warmth inside during the day. During the night the huts are illuminated from within to add to the Christmas atmosphere of Bethlehem’s historic district.
Category 2
Photo: Mike Sinclair, courtesy AIA.
Girl Scouts Camp Prairie Schooner | Kansas City, Missouri | el dorado inc.
Camp Prairie Schooner features a dining hall, five permanent units, two buildings for troop use, a 40-foot rappel tower, an archery range, a swimming pool and a zipline. The load bearing walls of the structures are constructed of 2x6 wood studs that support a series of common & scissor trusses. The envelope is clad with corrugated metal panels, complementing the wood and aluminum clad windows and skylights. The end of the bunk houses are a combination of fluted polycarbonate glazing and painted concrete board over a rain screen system. All mechanical systems are concealed within the trusses. The pendant lights are custom fixtures designed and built by a former girl scout.
Photo: Johnsen Schmaling Architects, courtesy AIA.
Linear Cabin | Alma Lake, Wisconsin | Johnsen Schmaling Architects
The Linear Cabin is a small family retreat, its low-slung body sitting in a small clearing in Wisconsin’s North Woods. The building consists of three identically sized, nearly opaque boxes tied together with a continuous thin roof plane. The voids between the boxes allow for unobstructed views through the building from the outside, and into the sylvan landscape from within. The interior is clad in knotty pine, and is tempered by its crisply detailed joints and the simple lines of the lacquered millwork throughout. The cabin is wrapped in blackened cedar, with its darkness matching the weathered monochrome of traditional Wisconsin cabins.
Photo: Will Crocker, courtesy AIA.
St. Pius Chapel & Prayer Garden | New Orleans | Eskew+Dumez+Ripple
The new chapel was designed as a quiet refuge and intimate sanctuary for reflection and contemplation. The sanctuary, which complements the modernist character of the adjacent church (circa 1963), is small but tall, keeping occupants close while inspiring reverence. Beyond a few pieces of furniture and religious items, the space’s power and purpose is enhanced by its very simplicity allowing occupants worship in quiet and contemplative solitude, without distraction.
Photo: Mitch Tobias, courtesy AIA.
Studio Dental | San Francisco | Montalba Architects, Inc.
The goal was to create a spacious interior while packing Studio Dental’s required program for its mobile unit. The 26-foot-long trailer with 230 interior sf features a waiting area, sterilization room, and two operatories. The sterilization room is hidden behind millwork panels that wrap around to form the patient waiting bench. A centralized, double-sided millwork panel houses equipment for both operatories and gestures up to 11-foot-plus ceilings with translucent sculpted skylights. Materials include natural wood millwork, bright-white surfaces, and a custom perforation pattern.
Photo: Iwan Baan, courtesy AIA.
Village Health Works Staff Housing | Bujumbura Burundi | Louise Braverman, Architect
Embedded in the mountainside of an off-the-grid rural village in Burundi, this 18-bed staff housing is a bridge between East African elemental aesthetics and inventive sustainability. The 6,000-sf dormitory captures scenic mountain views. The same design aspects that establish its visual presence, such as airflow enhancing porches, also advance its sustainability.
Related Stories
| Jan 20, 2011
Community college to prepare next-gen Homeland Security personnel
The College of DuPage, Glen Ellyn, Ill., began work on the Homeland Security Education Center, which will prepare future emergency personnel to tackle terrorist attacks and disasters. The $25 million, 61,100-sf building’s centerpiece will be an immersive interior street lab for urban response simulations.
| Jan 19, 2011
Industrial history museum gets new home in steel plant
The National Museum of Industrial History recently renovated the exterior of a 1913 steel plant in Bethlehem, Pa., to house its new 40,000-sf exhibition space. The museum chose VOA Associates, which is headquartered in Chicago, to complete the design for the exhibit’s interior. The exhibit, which has views of five historic blast furnaces, will feature artifacts from the Smithsonian Institution to illustrate early industrial America.
| Jan 19, 2011
Baltimore mixed-use development combines working, living, and shopping
The Shoppes at McHenry Row, a $117 million mixed-use complex developed by 28 Walker Associates for downtown Baltimore, will include 65,000 sf of office space, 250 apartments, and two parking garages. The 48,000 sf of main street retail space currently is 65% occupied, with space for small shops and a restaurant remaining.
| Jan 19, 2011
Biomedical research center in Texas to foster scientific collaboration
The new Health and Biomedical Sciences Center at the University of Houston will facilitate interaction between scientists in a 167,000-sf, six-story research facility. The center will bring together researchers from many of the school’s departments to collaborate on interdisciplinary projects. The facility also will feature an ambulatory surgery center for the College of Optometry, the first of its kind for an optometry school. Boston-based firms Shepley Bulfinch and Bailey Architects designed the project.
| Jan 19, 2011
San Diego casino renovations upgrade gaming and entertainment
The Sycuan Casino in San Diego will get an update with a $27 million, 245,000-sf renovation. Hnedak Bobo Group, Memphis, Tenn., and Cleo Design, Las Vegas, drew design inspiration from the historic culture of the Sycuan tribe and the desert landscape, creating a more open space with better circulation. Renovation highlights include a new “waterless” water entry feature and new sports bar and grill, plus updates to gaming, poker, off-track-betting, retail, and bingo areas. The local office of San Francisco-based Swinerton Builders will provide construction services.
| Jan 19, 2011
Extended stay hotel aims to provide comfort of home
Housing development company Campus Apartments broke ground on a new extended stay hotel that will serve the medical and academic facilities in Philadelphia’s University City, including the University of Pennsylvania and the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. The 11,000-sf hotel will operate under Hilton’s Homewood Suites brand, with 136 suites with full kitchens and dining and work areas. A part of the city’s EnergyWorks loan program, the project aims for LEED with a green roof, low-flow fixtures, and onsite stormwater management. Local firms Alesker & Dundon Architects and GC L.F. Driscoll Co. complete the Building Team.
| Jan 19, 2011
New Fort Hood hospital will replace aging medical center
The Army Corps of Engineers selected London-based Balfour Beatty and St. Louis-based McCarthy to provide design-build services for the Fort Hood Replacement Hospital in Texas, a $503 million, 944,000-sf complex partially funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The firm plans to use BIM for the project, which will include outpatient clinics, an ambulance garage, a central utility plant, and three parking structures. Texas firms HKS Architects and Wingler & Sharp will participate as design partners. The project seeks LEED Gold.
| Jan 19, 2011
Museum design integrates Greek history and architecture
Construction is under way in Chicago on the National Hellenic Museum, the nation’s first museum devoted to Greek history and culture. RTKL designed the 40,000-sf limestone and glass building to include such historic references as the covered walkway of classical architecture and the natural wood accents of Byzantine monasteries. The museum will include a research library and oral history center, plus a 3,600-sf rooftop terrace featuring three gardens. The project seeks LEED Silver.
| Jan 19, 2011
Architecture Billings Index jumped more than 2 points in December
On the heels of its highest mark since 2007, the Architecture Billings Index jumped more than two points in December. The American Institute of Architects reported the December ABI score was 54.2, up from a reading of 52.0 the previous month.
| Jan 19, 2011
Large-Scale Concrete Reconstruction Solid Thinking
Driven by both current economic conditions and sustainable building trends, Building Teams are looking more and more to retrofits and reconstruction as the most viable alternative to new construction. In that context, large-scale concrete restoration projects are playing an important role within this growing specialty.
