AIA Institute Honor Awards

The Conga Room in Los Angeles, California. Designed by Belzberg Architects. Winner of the 2011 Institute Honor Award for Interior Architecture. Project description: "In an effort to meet the clients aesthetic desires for a ceiling that reflected the vibrancy and dynamism of the Latin culture, a pattern was developed made of diamonds from the rumba dance step. The ceiling also boasts a state of the art LED lighting system, which required lighting analysis and optimization, using various building performance software. Patrons ascend the staircase wrapped around this glowing spectacle Its pattern morphs into the pedals and flowers, and responds to the varying conditions of program and space."

The Moving Picture Company in Santa Monica, California. Designed by Patrick Tighe Architecture. Winner of the 2011 Institute Honor Award for Interior Architecture. Project description: "The forms and patterns developed are produced using studies of light. Light is analyzed and modeled three dimensionally. Frames from the animation are chosen and layered to organize spatial qualities and movement throughout the office environment. Grading rooms, edit bays, conference rooms, open and closed offices, client areas, production spaces, entertaining areas, tape vaults, mechanical rooms, machine rooms, exterior terraces and support spaces make up the program of the facility."

The FIDM San Diego Campus in San Diego, California. Designed by Clive Wilkinson Architects. Winner of the 2011 Institute Honor Award for Interior Architecture. Project description: "While efficiency required the grouping of the various program areas, the architect’s focus was on creating interaction between the spaces. A looped circulation path encircles the floor plan; generous public areas and hallway lounge settings create opportunities for spontaneous interaction. A color palette drawn from the areas native vegetation appears throughout the space, and a comprehensive graphic program connotes the function of spaces and leads users through the floor."

Alchemist in Miami Beach, Florida. Designed by Rene Gonzalez Architect. Winner of the 2011 Institute Honor Award for Interior Architecture. Project description: "The project, a floating glass box inserted into the fifth floor of a parking structure and open to the Miami Beach sky, is calmly perched 60 feet in the air like a floating cloud. Inside reflective materials capture the colors and energy of the surrounding environment and make the space a radiant jewel that can be seen from many vantage points throughout Miami Beach."

The Power House Restoration/Renovation in St. Louis, Missouri. Designed by Cannon Design. Winner of the 2011 Institute Honor Award for Interior Architecture. Project description: "Built in 1928 and in disuse for almost three decades, the historic structure had confounded developers over the years who struggled with its tall volume but relatively small footprint. Crisp, modern workspace is juxtaposed against rusted columns and glazed brick. The new floors are held away from the north and east elevations, which contain dramatic Romanesque windows facing out to the city. The windows afford a significant amount of daylight and views to the surrounding neighborhood."

The Registrar Recorder County Clerk Elections Operations Center in Santa Fe Springs, California. Designed by Lehrer Architects. Winner of the 2011 Institute Honor Award for Interior Architecture. Project description: "The design work is to transform the huge, drab new warehouse into a place of delight. Given its scale, economy and impact were critical. Color was used strategically—with paint and megabanner technology--in space, on select vertical (walls and banners) and horizontal (floors) surfaces, using paint and fabric. Bright colors and imagery energize the entire warehouse and increase productivity."

Armstrong Oil and Gas in Denver, Colorado. Designed by Lake|Flato Architects. Winner of the 2011 Institute Honor Award for Interior Architecture. Project description: "The adaptive re-use of a 1900s machine shop celebrates the spirit, craft and materiality of its original program. The transformed spaces are organized around a new landscaped courtyard created by stripping away the center section of the existing roof to bring in natural light and ventilation to the interior spaces. A gated entry court on the street front acts as a threshold to the courtyard framed by two brick volumes containing the building’s public spaces on one side and office spaces on the other."

Photograph © Mitch Tobias (415) 647-0242 www.mitchtobias.com No Property Release. Washington Square Park Dental in San Francisco, California. David Montalba, architect. (Montalba Architects)

The Academy of Music in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Designed by KlingStubbins. Winner of the 2011 Institute Honor Award for Interior Architecture. Project description: "The beaux arts style opera house owned by The Philadelphia Orchestra is landmarked and historic, but history had not, in fact, treated its ballroom kindly. 151 years of continuous use had taken a heavy toll on the details. Meticulous research and design has restored the original context and spatial qualities to the room. Windows and doors were uncovered and restored, grisaille painting of the trompe l’oeil patterning reintroduced, original crystal and bronze chandeliers faithfully reproduced all towards recreating the original sentiments of its opening day."

The Vancouver Convention Centre West in Vancouver, British Columbia. Designed by LMN Architects, with DA/MCM. Winner of the 2011 Institute Honor Award for Interior Architecture. Project description: "As the world's first LEED Platinum convention center, this project is designed to bring together the complex ecology, vibrant local culture and urban environment, embellishing their inter-relationships through architectural form and materiality. The design knits the convention center experience into the urban fabric of the downtown core, using the building to frame public open space and extend the city’s pedestrian activity to the waterfront."

The AT&T Performing Arts Center Dee and Charles Wyly Theatre in Dallas, Texas. Designed by REX|OMA, with Kendall/Heaton Associates. Winner of the 2011 Institute Honor Award for Architecture. Project description: "By positioning back-of-house and front-of-house facilities above and beneath the auditorium instead of encircling it, the 80,300-square-foot, 575-seat “theater machine” extends the technologies of the fly tower and stage into the auditorium to provide an almost infinite variety of stage-audience configurations; liberates the performance hall's perimeter to allow fantasy and reality to mix when and where desired; and allows for greater interaction between artistic and administrative staff, fostering new internal collaborations."

University of Michigan Art Museum

The North Carolina Museum of Art in Raleigh, North Carolina. Designed by Thomas Phifer and Partners. Winner of the 2011 Institute Honor Award for Architecture. Project description: "The museum is, in essence, a single 65,000-square-foot room, separated by partial height walls into galleries, none a discrete, fully enclosed room. Overhead, hundreds of elliptical occuli bathe the interior in even, full-spectrum daylight, modulated to filter out damaging rays. In this gently luminous setting, the artwork takes on heightened vividness. Outside, matte anodized aluminum panels that enclose the building continue the discourse with the landscape. From oblique vantage points on the exterior, underlying strips of polished stainless steel capture unexpected and scintillating reflections."

The U.S. Land Port of Entry in Warroad, Minnesota. Designed by Julie Snow Architects, Inc. Winner of the 2011 Institute Honor Award for Architecture. Project description: "U.S. Land Port of Entry supports the mission-driven demands of Customs and Border Protection (CBP), responsible for securing the nation’s borders and promoting legal trade and travel. This 43,000-square-foot facility is composed of three separate enclosed areas linked together with a continuous canopy. The main building houses the officer work area and holding cells, the secondary building houses the vehicular inspection garages, laboratory space and firing range, and the commercial building is used for unloading and inspecting commercial vehicles."

Weiss Manfredi / Barnard College

Horizontal Skyscraper/Vanke Center in Shenzhen, China. Designed by Steven Holl Architects. Winner of the 2011 Institute Honor Award for Architecture. Project description: "The building hovers above the landscape, freeing it for public use and for a unique scheme of ecosystem restoration. By lifting the building off the ground, the project is both a building and a landscape, a delicate intertwining of sophisticated engineering and the natural environment. The landscape scheme works to minimize run-off, erosion, and other types of environmental damage associated with development. Additionally, the project employs some of the most forward-thinking sustainable design strategies."

Architectural photographs of The Boilerhouse Restaurant at Ford Point, Richmond, California.

New Acropolis Museum Location: Athens, Greece Architect: Bernard Tschumi Architect

One Jackson Square in New York City. Designed by Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates, PC. Winner of the 2011 Institute Honor Award for Architecture. Project description: "This 35-unit luxury residential building, located in Manhattan’s Greenwich Village is home to the highest concentration of early architecture in New York City. The building volume steps down from 11 stories to seven stories, from north to south, accommodating the zoning laws and mediating the varied scales of the surrounding neighborhood. Undulating bands of glass identify individual floors, creating a ribbon-like series of convexities and concavities along the street wall."