2017 Best of Design Award for Unbuilt – Commercial: The Ronald O. Perelman Center at the World Trade Center

Architect: REX
Location: New York 

On one of the most significant sites in New York City, the Ronald O. Perelman Center at the World Trade Center will feature works of theater, dance, music, film, and opera. It is a pure form, wrapped in translucent, veined marble, laminated within insulated glass. The performing arts center includes three auditoria, which can combine to form seven additional configurations and a rehearsal room—all can adopt manifold stage-audience configurations with flexible patron flow—as well as offices and recreational spaces. The keystone and final piece of the World Trade Center master plan, the Perelman Center embraces creation and memory with respectful individuality.

“A respectful addition to a complicated site, with an especially elegant, thin marble skin that is sure to transform the surrounding public space, day and night.” —Irene Sunwoo, Director of Exhibitions, GSAPP (juror)

Architect of Record: 
Davis Brody Bond

Theater Consultant:
Charcoalblue

Facade Consultant:
Front

Structural Engineers: 
Magnusson Klemencic Associates with Silman

Acoustics + Vibration:
Threshold Acoustics with Wilson Ihrig

Honorable Mention

Project: Lima Art Museum (MALI)
Architect: Young Projects 
Location: Lima, Peru

This proposal for the New Contemporary Art Wing at Lima Art Museum inverts two mirrored ellipses, creating a structural and conceptual grid. The geometric orientation of the ellipse, its curve orbiting two focal points, contrasts the rectilinear logic of the existing historic Palacio de la Exposición.