The American Institute of Architects has announced the recipients of the 2009 Honor Awards for Interior Architecture. The 10 honorees represent a mix of commercial, residential, and cultural projects that, according to the AIA, "skillfully used natural light and provided unique architectural approaches to common design problems."
Jury members for the interiors category were: Jury Chair Mark P. Sexton, FAIA, of Krueck Sexton Architects; Joan Blumenfeld, FAIA, of Perkins + Will; Elisabeth Knibbe, AIA, of Quinn Evans Architects; Arvind Manocha, of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Association; and Kevin Sneed, AIA, of OTJ Architects.
Winners will be recognized at the AIA 2009 national convention, scheduled for April in San Francisco.
Interior Honor Awards
With AIA commentary
Barclays Global Investors Headquarters, San Francisco
STUDIOS Architecture
Barclays Global Investors’ new headquarters office embraces innovation within a professional environment through thoughtful, sophisticated design and provides the infrastructure necessary to meet the firm’s significant technological demands. By interspersing break areas within work areas and offering various meeting spaces, the design encourages interaction and collaboration.
Chronicle Books, San Francisco
Mark Cavagnero Associates
Designed for a popular San Francisco-based publishing company, Chronicle Books’ new home reflects its strong communal values, fosters innovation, and responds to its unique relationship to books. In support of the office’s workflow, new circulation between floors provides intuitive access and visual connections. The varied spaces create an open, charged social atmosphere while preserving personal space for quietness and concentration.
The Heckscher Foundation for Children, New York City
Christoff:Finio architecture
Commissioned by the Heckscher Foundation for Children, this project transforms a stoic neo-Georgian townhouse built in 1902 in New York City into a modern interior for the foundation’s administration, providing offices, a boardroom, and small conference spaces. By cutting a shaft of daylight from the ground floor to rooftop, the organization of the building’s activity is centered on a single gesture of light and space.
Jigsaw, Washington, D.C.
David Jameson Architect
Recycling a single-story suburban house located on a busy corner site, Jigsaw introverts itself in a continuous spatial flow around an open-air courtyard carved from the home's remains. A matrix of spaces is linked through the building; stories merge and rooms relate to each other as they rise and fall in a series of interlocked puzzle-like volumes.
R.C. Hedreen, Seattle
NBBJ
R.C. Hedreen Company’s new office goes beyond practice to a transformative experience that creates a new kind of environment for conducting business. The project called for a complete remodel of the second floor in Seattle’s 1927 Art-Deco Olympic Tower building and transitioned the company from a small, traditional office space to a large, open environment offering functionality and sophistication.
School of American Ballet, New York City
Diller Scofidio + Renfro
The expansion project for the School of American Ballet is located in the facilities of the official training academy for the New York City Ballet. The 8,200-square-foot project includes the addition of two new dance studios within the space of two existing ones. Like nesting dolls, each of the new studios is housed in an encompassing shell.
Sheila C. Johnson Design Center, New York City
Lyn Rice Architects
The Sheila C. Johnson Design Center establishes a new 32,800-square-foot campus nexus for Parsons The New School for Design by uniting and comprehensively re-organizing the street-level spaces of the school’s four discrete buildings around a new campus quad. The center performs as an expansive urban threshold that draws together the school’s creative programs and its vibrant Greenwich Village context.
Tishman Speyer Corporate Headquarters, New York City
Lehman Smith McLeish
The corporate headquarters for Tishman Speyer Properties is located in historic Rockefeller Center. The project relocated Tishman’s corporate office and consolidated business units in this flagship space, which is one of the firm’s signature properties. Modifications to the 1931 building created dramatic spaces that highlight the firm’s forward-thinking mission, mirrored most prominently by its Modern art collection.
Town House, Washington, D.C.
Robert M. Gurney, FAIA
Built like its neighbors, over a century ago, and part of a continuous network of buildings in a historical district, this town house has been completely renovated. Floor openings with bridges, skylights, and a three-story galvanized steel wall animate the spaces and integrate the floors vertically. Exposed brick walls, painted white, are juxtaposed against blue epoxy floors. Glass and steel elements compose the spaces and unify a diverse but consistent palette of materials, resulting in a Modern spatial quality within a traditional town house typology.
World Headquarters for IFAW—Yarmouth Port, Massachusetts
designLAB architects
The World Headquarters for the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) established a precedent for a new work environment that is also a model for sustainable, low-impact development for the surrounding region. The building’s design is contemporary to reflect the organization’s global advocacy, yet also is inspired by the local vernacular.
