The Brick Industry Association (BIA) recently announced the winners of its 2005 Brick in Architecture Awards. Each winning project demonstrated the importance of good design and the need to use environmentally friendly materials to create durable and sustainable structures.
Award winning projects include:
Project: RadioShack Riverfront Campus, Fort Worth, Texas
Architect: HKS, Inc.
The RadioShack Riverfront Campus, which replaced two high-rise buildings, was developed based on the company’s desire to be responsive to its business requirements, its employees’ needs, and, especially, the Fort Worth community. Serving as the corporate headquarters, the Riverfront Campus is at the center of the proposed Trinity River Project master plan expected to invigorate the downtown Fort Worth area.
Project: Riverfront Parking Deck, Wilmington, Delaware
Architect: Tevebaugh Associates.
The Riverfront Parking Deck was conceived as a unique design that would blend into the historic character of Wilmington’s Train Station District. The design team was charged to create a structure that a) maintained a low profile while allowing the 1.5 million Amtrak passengers per year to enjoy the river view from the train and elevated track platforms, and, b) create a visual, architectural link between the existing historic buildings—the Wilmington Station (now Amtrak), built in 1907, and the picturesque Baltimore & Ohio passenger station, built in 1888.
Institutional Category:
Project: Cornell University’s Alice H. Cook House, Ithaca, New York
Architect: Kieran Timberlake Associates LLP
The West Campus Residential Initiative (WCRI), which includes the Alice H. Cook House, was developed to provide housing for 1,250 undergraduate students in five college houses. The design team understood that architectural compatibility with the existing residential buildings was of utmost importance to the University. Since stone in the quantity and color to match the existing Collegiate Gothic residence halls was unavailable, the design team chose a specific type of brick that matched the Gothic stone in scale and pattern of the units, texture, and the ranges of value and hue.
Project: Life Sciences Centre, Vancouver, British Columbia Canada
Architect: Diamond and Schmitt Architects, Inc.
The University of British Columbia (UBC) Life Sciences Centre is a 565,000 square foot research-academic building, which complements and augments an existing medical complex on the campus. Home to the UBC Medical School, the Centre houses anatomy teaching labs, faculty offices, two large auditoria and two sky lit atria. Two of the mandates for the design team was (is this right as was or should it be were?) to ensure that the building would be sustainable and would provide the owner high performance with a long service life.
Special Feature Category:
Project: Hotel Valencia, San Antonio, Texas
Architect: 3D/International Architects
The lounge is the center of Hotel Valencia’s public spaces. Designing the lounge needed special consideration as it is aligned in between several structural columns and an emergency stair. The mandate for the design team was to utilize natural materials such as wood, concrete and brick to express a familiar material in an entirely different way.
Project: Buffer Ruled Wall, Tampa, Florida
Architect: MGA Group Architects, Inc.
The Screen/Buffer Ruled Wall was designed to create a beautiful piece of sculpture and to screen the owner’s yard from the street. Using Eladio Dieste’s building system as inspiration, which includes brick and steel reinforcing, the design team succeeded in creating a functional work of art. Brick, used for the screen, not only fulfilled the structural requirement, but also allowed the design team to emphasize the modulating waves.
A common theme among the winning projects was the need to utilize environmental-friendly materials to create durable and sustainable structures. Brickworks’ inherent durability and sustainability not only made it the leading material choice but it also enabled most of the winning projects to receive or register for LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Certification, a voluntary, consensus-based national standard for developing high-performance, sustainable buildings.
Winners will receive a Brick In Architecture Awards plaque commemorating their participation in the 2005 awards program, and their work will be featured in the Brick Gallery.
