Five 2006 Design Awards — nearly a third of those given by the St. Louis Chapter of the American Institute of Architects — were conferred upon people affiliated with the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts, including faculty members, a graduate student and an alumnus.
The annual awards honor architects, designers and craftspersons for contributions to excellence in the built environment. A total of 18 awards for recent works were given in five categories: Craftsmanship, Drawings, Interiors, Unbuilt and Architecture.
Paul J. Donnelly, FAIA, PE, the Rebecca and John Voyles Professor of Architecture, and Sung Ho Kim, assistant professor of architecture and principal of Axi:Ome LLC, won a Merit Award in the Unbuilt category for their proposal “Architecture as Landscape: A Contemporary Hotel in Moscow.” Matthew Horvath, PE (GA ’05), served as a consultant on the project.
Designed for KECO Invest Engineering GMBH, a Russian development corporation, the hotel would integrate approximately 200 rooms with a convention center and public, commercial and recreational spaces at a site near the historic Donskoy Monastery, approximately 2.5 kilometers from The Kremlin.
The hotel’s structural design calls for an innovative polycarbonate roof/enclosure that slopes into a surrounding masonry landscape, blurring the distinction between ground and building while maintaining the neighborhood’s existing proportions.
Also receiving an Unbuilt Merit Award were Jodi Polzin, visiting assistant professor of architecture, and Greg Hitchcock, research assistant, for their proposed “Tulum Archaeological Museum” in Tulum, Mexico.
Donald Koster, AIA, LEED AP, a Weese Teaching Fellow and visiting assistant professor of architecture, received an Architecture Merit Award for a 1,200-square-foot wood-frame summer residence on the Nova Scotia coast.
The structure, a modern homage to the ubiquitous vernacular Nova Scotia barn, employs multiple passive environmental strategies while blurring the distinction between indoors and out. Framed in wood and clad in Eastern white cedar shingles with a Galvalume metal roof, the building materials were chosen for their authenticity, local availability and ease of maintenance in the harsh coastal environment.
Ian Caine, affiliate assistant professor of architecture, was part of a team from HKW Architects, St. Louis that received an Architecture Merit Award for the K-6 lunchroom addition to the New City School in St. Louis.
“Re-Imagining Lights” by graduate student Barbara M. Boykin received an Honor Award in the Drawings category. The project was praised for its “poetic quality and lyrical movement that echoes the sense of light and water.” And alumnus Geoffrey Loo (M.Arch ’04), now with Cannon Design, St. Louis, received a Drawings Honor Award for “Beacon.”
Dean Carmon Colangelo, the E. Desmond Lee Professor for Community Collaboration in the Arts, served as jury chair in the Drawings category. The ceremony took place Sept. 28 at The Coronado in St. Louis.