Allied Works, Brett Crawford win top AIA awards, Works Partnership and Vallaster & Corl are multiple winners

Architect Brad Cloepfil's firm, Allied Works, took the top prize at Saturday's AIA Design Awards, held at the newly opened Nines hotel in the former Meier & Frank building. The Honor Award, as it's called, went to Allied's design for Booker T. Washington high school in Dallas.

As with Allied's legendary Wieden + Kennedy building in Portland as well as its new Museum of Art & Design in New York, this is a rehab of an older building that re-imagines it. The arts-oriented high school (pictured above left), attended by musicians Norah Jones, Roy Hargrove and Erykah Badu (as Tim DuRoche notes on the Burnside Blog), was originally built in 1922. Allied added 170,000 square feet that includes two theaters, science labs, dance studios, and a costume design shop. The form takes a series of floating planes, clad in grayish brick with a random-looking pattern of vertical window strips that makes the facade look a bit like an inside-out barcode. This project was on hold for years; Cloepfil had already completed most of the design when I interviewed him for a profile in 2003. So it's good to see it finished.

Brett Crawford Architecture + Planning won the night's other Honor Award, in addition to a Sustainability Award, for the 1310 Condominiums in Southeast Portland. (My apologies - I initially had Allied's as the only Honor winner.) 

The 1310, also featured in the January Portland Spaces issue, is clad with handsome Okume wood panels and an innovative rain-screen system, as well as numerous passive sustainable features from natural ventilation to skylights and tankless hot water heaters.

Although no project by Works Partnership won a built award (none were submitted), the firm was one of only two double winners in the architecture category. (The IIDA also honored interior design in the same ceremony, and Portland firm Corso Staicoff was also a multiple award winner.) The firm won in the Unbuilt category for 300B, a theater and club being developed by Randy Rapaport and Beam Development's Brad Malsin.

In the jury critique session held at the AIA's Center for Architecture on Friday night, the trio of jurors--while not divulging any winners--clearly seemed enamored with this project. Shaped like a black cube, its facade on the top and sides has a series of organic looking fissures cut for windows and skylights. Although it's unclear if this theater will get built, Rapaport in particular seeks a bold, eye-catching design. While in the past working with Holst Architecture, Rapaport is now very much into Works Partnership, as Beam has been for some time.

That same firm also won an Unbuilt award for Grow.PDX (right), a 19-unit housing development proposed for the St. Johns neighborhood near Cathedral Park. In the rendering, Grow.PDX looks a little bit like a 22nd century version of a 1960s public housing project.

Another Merit award went to Mahlum Architects for its latest Providence Health System clinic. Although not known as a high-end design boutique per se, Mahlum has a long history of fine sustainable buildings. At Friday's critique session, the jury made note of this project's "plasticity" and "layers of light" - that it was a modest building with complexity and beauty. 

"We looked for decision making in projects," said juror Marlon Blackwell of the University of Arkansas of the awards selection process. "What resources did you have and how did you use them?" To receive an Honor Award, the top prize, a project has to be "resolute at the scale of the city, of the site and street, and of the hand," Blackwell added. "Very often architecture is not a big move so much as a game of inches."

A Craftsmanship Award went to Fletcher Farr Ayotte's design of the University of Oregon's White Stag block, which recently also received LEED Gold certification from the US Green Building Council.

No stranger to the AIA awards, the venerable Thomas Hacker Architects took home a Merit Award for its Humanities Complex at the University of California/Santa Cruz. The firm's Atwater Place condos in South Waterfront were apparently shut out for an award. But look for Hacker's Mercy Corps headquarters and Cyan apartments to compete for awards in the next year or two. Thomas Hacker Architects is also celebrating its 25th anniversary this week.

Another out of town project by a local firm, the WestTown on 8th condos in Eugene by to Vallaster & Corl won a Merit Award as well. The firm, which is among the most venerable condo designers in town, also received a Citation Award (one notch lower than Merit, two lower than Honor) for the Jefferson Condos on SW 18th and Jefferson pictured at right. ("Fish don't fry in the kitchen, beans don't burn on the grill.") I've been a fan of this elegantly curving brick building in Goose Hollow, a throwback to the effortlessly beautiful fabric buildings of Holland, since it was first completed last year.

Some of the most acclaimed and/or biggest firms that have won a lot of design awards in the past, such as Holst Architecture, Skylab or even Zimmer Gunsul Frasca, weren't honored as much this year - although Hotel Modera, which Holst worked on, was honored by the IIDA for its interiors by Corso Staicoff. In the jury critique session on Friday, the jury alluded to not having a full sense of Modera from the photographs; although that apparently didn't bother the separate interior awards jury.

At Friday's critique session, the jury also had some words about Portland - although only (as usual) after a longer period talking about their own work. I'm always slightly frustrated by the crit session for this reason. I like hearing the jurors tell their own stories, but by the time they get to talking about Portland and Portland projects, there are only a few minutes left. And that time got spent talking largely about little practical details of the proposals and how the jury went about their selections.

Talking about Portland, though, they (unsurprisingly perhaps) made note of the city's streetscape and attention to public-facing facades. "We saw some really good facades," juror Ron Radziner of LA's Marmol Radziner & Associates said. The jury also expressed surprise at not seeing more single-family houses or retail designs entered in the competition - although more of those were present in the IIDA awards. The jury speculated that Portland is more civic minded, and perhaps that is why there were more mixed-use projects entered and fewer houses, the latter of which would comprise a lot of most other design award competitions. 

Comments

[C]

In addition to the sustainability award, the 1310 Condominium was also the recipient of an honor award, and should share top billing with the performing arts high school.

[Benjamin]

I hope that Works' actual works are as nice as their renderings. There is an often painful distance between concept and reality.

What about the People's Choice?!

[Brent]

I've been a fan of this building since construction was completed. Check out the 1310's website at www.1310condominiums.com. Best condo project in town.

[marc]

Booker T. Washington is a tremendous accomplishment- a huge project negotiated through a complex process- a portland architect doing work on a larger/national stage- more than worthy of the top award. I'm never sure how projects that aren't subject to the same unforgiving process can be given top honors. 1310 is well done, but really no more architecturally challenging than the Clinton, which was passed over- a much more complex and ambitious (and in most ways more successful) project with significant urban and economic demands placed upon it.

[intheknow]

I agree with Marc - particularly that projects that are not subject to an architect having the do their "entire" job - designing with clarity, convincing a separate party to fund their idea, and then walking a contractor down the path of construction without it being completely destroyed - shouldn't be held up as examples of architectural excellence. I feel this way every time an architect gets and award for a spec house or their own project. It feels a little like giving awards for just showing up. 1310 is ok, but not exceptional. But then again, neither is the Jefferson - which shocked me, also.

[observer]

The images on the website for the GROW project are somewhat different than the one posted.

http://www.worksarchitecture.net/html/project3_0.html

[Caleb Freese]

The Providence Health System clinic building was praised for it's "solids faced with graffiti murals. The Murals: The integrated murals tell the story of the neighborhood, its residents, and the commitments the client has made to give back to the neighborhood. They are visible from inside and outside the clinic, from vehicles and from the light-rail."

Though Providence claims to give back to the neighborhood by funding the murals, they've never recognized the artist who created the mural. Artists are often passed by and seen as disposable by many industries, so to set the record straight: the mural was created by Caleb Freese! (www.squadup.net)

[Potestio]

Hey Caleb,

I greatly appreciated your work on the Murals, and working with you was fun. I am sorry that you did not get more credit.

As a matter of mission and policy, I always have an artist or artist/fabricator involved in my projects.

Rick Potestio