January 7, 2008—The winners of the 2008 Institute Honor Awards for Architecture include international headquarters buildings, museums and arts centers, and public education facilities for learning and living. These projects, which span the US., and represent Canada, the UK, and South Korea, spotlight sustainable building practices and distinguished architecture.
The winners are:
- Griffith Observatory Renovation and Expansion, Los Angeles
Architect: Pfeiffer Partners Architects
Client: The City of Los Angeles
The Griffith Observatory renovation took the famous telescope into new dimensions, restoring its mix of Beaux Arts, Neoclassical, and Art Deco features while more than doubling its size with the addition of new exhibition spaces, a theater, and a cafe. - Heifer International World Headquarters, Little Rock, Ark.
Architect: Polk Stanley Rowland Curzon Porter Architects
Client: Heifer International
Heifer International’s mission of breaking the cycle of Third World poverty by giving families and villages cattle is a lesson in economically regenerative sustainability in and of itself, so their new headquarters in Little Rock demanded a comprehensive take on the themes of egalitarian green. - Loblolly House, Taylors Island, Md.
Architect: KieranTimberlake Associates LLP
Client: Barbara DeGrange and Stephen Kieran
The Loblolly House, by 2008 AIA Architecture Firm Award winner KieranTimberlake, draws inspiration and formal cues from the surrounding coastal flora and landscape: loblolly pines and saltmeadow cordgrass. - 26th Street Low-Income Housing, Santa Monica, Calif.
Architect: Kanner Architects
Client: Community Corp. of Santa Monica
Called “a ray of hope” by the jury, 26th St. and Santa Monica Boulevard is a succinct example of affordable housing done right. - Liberty Memorial Restoration and Museum, Kansas City, Mo.
Architect: ASAI Architecture
Client: Kansas City, Mo., Parks and Recreation Department
Since structural and material decay shuttered it in 1994, the Liberty Memorial, with its iconic tower monument and public mall in Kansas City, Mo., was the sleeping giant of early 20th century history. ASAI Architecture’s renovations restored the ailing facility and added 160,000 square feet of museum space, including an auditorium and education and research centers that are all derived from the memorial’s original architectural vernacular. - Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Mo.
Architect: Steven Holl Architects
Client: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
Steven Holl Architects’ addition to the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art places five translucent, rectangular boxes (called “lenses”) on the eastern edge of the museum’s campus. - Delta Shelter, Mazama, Wash.
Architect: Olson Sundberg Kundig Allen Architects
Client: Michal Friedrich
A steel-clad sentry in a mountaintop flood plain, the Delta Shelter is an austere yet comfortable place of adventure. The small, 1,000-square-foot weekend cabin was mostly prefabricated off site and is meant to be “low-tech” and “virtually indestructible,” according to the architects. - Olympic Sculpture Park, Seattle
Architect: Weiss/Manfredi Architecture/Landscape/Urbanism
Client: Seattle Art Museum
Envisioned as a new urban model for sculpture parks, this project is located on Seattle’s last undeveloped waterfront property—an industrial brownfield site sliced by train tracks and an arterial road. - Residence Halls Units 1&2 Infill Student Housing, Berkeley, Calif.
Architect: EHDD Architecture
Client: University of California, Berkeley
The architects’ solution of infill student housing remedies the urban design challenges of an existing residential site, one block south of the University of California at Berkeley campus. - Shaw Center for the Arts, Baton Rouge
Architect: Schwartz/Silver Architects Inc., with associate architects Eskew + Dumez + Ripple, and Jerry M. Campbell & Associates
Client: Shaw Center LLC
The jury called the Shaw Center a “touchstone of the urban redevelopment in the city.” The architects combined two primary public venues, the Museum of Art and the performing arts theaters, to form a single structure that cantilevers over the historic rebuilt Auto Hotel. - Thomas L. Wells Public School, Toronto
Architect: Baird Sampson Neuert Architects
Client: Toronto District School Board
The first of a new generation of high performance green schools by the Toronto District School Board, Thomas L. Wells is intended to serve as a model demonstrating sustainable design principles and an enhanced learning environment. - TRUTEC Building, Seoul, South Korea
Architect: Barkow Leibinger Architects
Client: 7th fl, TRUTEC Building DMC Sang-Am Dong, Ma-Po Gu
Located in one of the last remaining open sites in north Seoul, the 55-meter-tall building is steel-framed with 11 stories of offices and showrooms over 5 levels of underground parking. - Unilever House (100 VE), London
Architect: Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates
Client: Unilever PLC
Completed in 1931 as Unilever’s headquarters, the project includes the transformation of the 1930s structure and a portion of a 1970s extension to the north. The architects achieve balance between retaining the important parts of the historic fabric of the building and providing a transformed work place and spatial experience for building visitors.
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