AIA Names Housing Award Recipients

Washington, D.C., March 13, 2008 — The American Institute of Architects (AIA) announced today the 19 recipients of the 2008 Housing Awards. The AIA’s Housing Awards Program, now in its eighth year, was established to recognize the best in housing design and promote the importance of good housing as a necessity of life, a sanctuary for the human spirit and a valuable national resource.

The jury for the 2008 Housing Awards include: Jury chair Sanford Steinberg, AIA, Steinberg Design Collaborative LLP, David Jameson, FAIA, David Jameson, Architect; Jane Kolleeny, Architectural Record; Charles F. McAfee, FAIA, McAfee3 Architects; and Mark McInturff, FAIA, McInturff Architects.

The jury recognized projects in four award categories: One/Two Family Custom Housing, Multifamily Housing, One/Two Family Production Housing, and Special Housing.

One/Two Family Custom Housing
The One and Two Family Custom Residences award recognizes outstanding designs for custom and remodeled homes for specific client(s).

Lake Tahoe Residence, Lake Tahoe, Nevada
Lake Flato Architects
Designed as a weekend retreat, this modern structure reflects the local vernacular by use of exposed concrete, weathered wood and rusted Cor-Ten steel that create a palette of rugged, low-maintenance materials. Metal roofing retains a blanket of snowfall as insulation and wards off potential damage from wildfires.

Laboratory, Omaha, Nebraska
Randy Brown Architects
This project was designed as a laboratory for architectural experiments. Green building techniques were integrated into the architecture: passive solar, natural ventilation, insulated concrete forms, R-45 roof insulation, renewable materials, radiant flooring, heat pumps and a green roof system. Many areas unfinished today offer opportunities for expansion.

Wissioming Residence, Glen Echo, Md.
Robert Gurney, FAIA, Architect
This house, sited on a heavily wooded lot overlooking the Potomac River, includes a swimming pool suspended 20 feet above grade to reduce further impact to the steeply sloping site. A home office is located on the ground floor of a detached structure separated from the main residence by a reflecting pool. That structure also contains a garage on the first level and a guest suite above. Translucent glass and panels of Kalwall are used to allow the building to serve as a lantern to the main house at night.

Wildcat Ridge Residence, Snowmass Village, Colo.
Voorsanger Architects
At the entrance to the house, the roof stretches out to a 40-foot cantilever over the driveway, which also provides much needed shade in the summer. The steel trusses form ribs that are visible inside the house and extend outside to the cantilevered edges of the roof. A massive wall of moss rock runs the length of the house, marking the division between living spaces.

Streeter House, Deep Haven, Minn.
Salmela Architect
By using prefabricated materials, this house sets a standard for sustainable construction methods. The house comprises a simple kit of parts: glass, concrete block, Glulam beams, structural insulated panels (SIPs) and pipe. The architects worked with a local manufacturer to make the12-inch x 12-inch by 24-inch black fly-ash concrete block specifically for this project. Polished concrete floors left exposed on the main level and all galvanized and plastic pipes for the electrical and mechanical conduit left exposed, act like veins throughout the house.

Modern Barn, Wainscott, N.Y.
Leroy Street Studio Architecture PC
This 6,000-square-foot single-family residence combines the qualities of traditional barns with modern detailing. A wrapping of slatted timber boarding forms a protective rain-screen that unifies a composition of interior and exterior spaces within. The main entrance consists of a break in the louvers into a glassy three-story slot that divides the mass of the building. This circulation court leads to the elevated public spaces, which take in the long views to the ocean.

L-Stack House, Fayetteville, Ark.
Marlon Blackwell Architect
This house responds to a site anomaly set within a dense, inner-city neighborhood near a city park. The trapezoid lot is traversed diagonally by a seasonal creek. The urban grid and the modest scale of single-story houses in the neighborhood is enhanced through a strategy of bridging and stacking of forms. The ground-floor interior is organized as a linear open plan with connecting terraces along and adjacent to the creek. The exterior cladding is a unique rain screen system articulated with rot-resistant Brazilian redwood.

Live / Work Studio II, Pittsburgh
studio d'ARC architects PC
Built as both a home and studio for two architects, this project contains the programmatic needs of a modest studio and living space. Three large glazed surfaces organize the interior and include a second-floor window that collects strong western light and a large, horizontal sliding roof window that serves as a thermal chimney as well as the central focus of the interior. Steel, glass, and locally made concrete blocks make references to the construction heritage of the city and help to ground this building within the context of its place.

Multifamily Housing
The Multifamily Housing award recognizes outstanding multifamily housing design. Both high- and low-density projects for public and private clients were considered. In addition to architectural design features, the jury assessed the integration of the building(s) into their context, including open and recreational space, transportation options and features that contribute to livable communities.

The Duke, Scottsdale, Ariz.
Circle West Architects
Located near downtown Scottsdale this modern building compresses various functions into individual, yet related spaces. Compact and efficient, emphasis was placed on sustainable design through successfully participating in Scottsdale’s Residential Green Building Program. The site layout and design of the project appropriately address the urban context while handling the environment of the desert and solar orientation.

Habitat 825, West Hollywood, Calif.
Lorcan O'Herlihy Architects
A centrally located courtyard allows all 19 units to have direct access from the exterior. All units are single-loaded, allowing for cross-ventilation and light to enter from multiple sides. The strategic use of black on the south side grounds the building, lime green rhymes with nature and embodies both the horizontal and vertical landscape concepts of Rudolf Schindler’s Kings Road House, which is adjacent to Habitat 825.

NoLi Housing, Philadelphia
Erdy McHenry Architecture
This building is the first phase of a complex composed of modern apartment housing, retail, office space, public amenities and the conversion of two vacant former warehouses. The building was completed in late August 2006. The project strategy was to create bi-level loft style apartments to increase the rentable square footage total for the project while providing unique housing opportunities for the developer and the tenants. Inside, the concrete block and plank structure has been left exposed, accentuating the building’s core structural elements.

Macallen Building Condominiums, Boston
Office dA Inc. and Burt Hill Inc.
This building, offering 144 units of housing; parking; retail space; and common media room, garden, and plaza, is the latest major addition in the revitalization of South Boston. A sloped, sedum green roof becomes a fifth facade, reading as a raised landscape in the skyline, while use of recycled materials, and fabricated systems, which were transported from within 500 miles, were all part of the sustainable design implementation. The building is applying for LEED® Gold certification.

26th Street – Low Income Housing, Santa Monica
Kanner Architects
The building comprises 44 low-to-moderate income housing units, a community room, a landscaped courtyard, and 81 parking spaces. The design incorporates dual-glazed and laminated windows along both street-facing sides to eliminate street noise. Drywells dug beneath the project collect and disperse storm-water runoff and minimize the project’s impact on the city’s storm sewer system.

Front Street, Block 97, New York City
Cook+Fox Architects LLC
In April of 2003, a redevelopment proposal emerged that sought to restore this vital section of the city’s historic fabric. Eleven 19th century brick warehouses were reconfigured, including combining some of the buildings to give better layouts to the residential spaces within. Several penthouse apartments were added, and many of the original façades were restored and embellished with thoughtful additions of modern architectural detailing.

25 Bond Street, New York City
BKSK Architects LLP
The façade of the building employs two types of stone to create a double-layered screen of varying widths and asymmetrical separations. The stone screen is set in front of a bronze-and-glass wall with floor to ceiling sliding sections that run the full width of the building. Seven individuals banded together with a developer to purchase the property and erect the building. The result was a building conceived as a big house, with common spaces considered an extension of each individual unit.

One/Two Family Production Housing
The One and Two Family Production Homes award will recognize excellent design of homes built for the speculative market.

Carneros Inn and Courtyard Homes, Napa, Calif.
William Rawn Associates, Architects Inc.
This project consists of two unique housing types designed to foster community ties within a resort that includes full-year permanent housing: First, 24 Courtyard Houses of 2,400 square feet each relegate the car to background status in favor of a more pedestrian-oriented streetscape. Each is organized around a central courtyard and features a rooftop terrace overlooking the vineyards. Second, 85 guest cottages of 600 square feet each represent the spirit of community integral to the resort's identity.

Modular: Crabapple, Omaha
Randy Brown Architects
The intended goal was to design an affordable, modern, eco-friendly home that would sell at the same price point as a homebuilder house with comparable square footage. The result was a modular-designed “bar” that sits on a poured-in-place concrete foundation. Front porches grace all of the homes, which also sport green roofs, Energy Star appliances, bamboo flooring, polished concrete floors, and recycled stone countertops.

Urban Infill, Milwaukee
Johnsen Schmaling Architects
This single-family residence consists of two interlocking building blocks, a compact two-story wood cube, and a single-story concrete block bar. The cube is based on a strict 48-inch module to maximize the use of standard sheets, allowing the builder to adapt the footprint easily to various lot dimensions and program sizes. Ribbons of alternating windows and fiber-cement louvers with a high-gloss finish wrap around the corners of the cube and frame views of the neighborhood.

Special Housing
The Special Housing award recognizes outstanding design of housing that meets the unique needs of other specialized housing types such as single room occupancy residences (SROs), independent living for the disabled, residential rehabilitation programs, domestic violence shelters, and other special housing.

Gatehouse, Boston
Hacin + Associates, Inc.
This new, six-story, mixed-use building was developed by a nonprofit agency that serves homeless men and women in the Boston area by offering job training, work experience, education, housing, and support services to help individuals experiencing homelessness reestablish themselves in society with dignity. The building contains14 units of affordable studio apartments on the top two floors, with program and office space for the agency below. Located at the ground floor is a commercial restaurant, which subsidizes the rent for the building’s SRO units. The energy-efficient highlight of this building, which is pending LEED certification, is the inclusion of two on-site geothermal wells with water-source heat pumps.

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