Residential — Single Unit
2020 Best of Design Award for Residential — Single Unit: Bautista House
Designer: PRODUCTORA
Location: Quintana Roo, Mexico
Bautista House was developed on a narrow beachfront lot on the Riviera Maya, near Tulum, in Quintana Roo and is fully powered by solar and wind energy. The project was cast in an organic blue concrete, which reacts over time to sun exposure, creating tones that range from ocean blue to sunset pink. Raising the house on cross-shaped columns has reduced its impact on the environment and generated views over the dune that separates the property from the sea. Bautista House is organized on three levels: the auxiliary ground floor below the house, the intermediate level containing all interior spaces, and a large roof terrace looking out on the Caribbean Sea, the jungle, and a lagoon.
Honorable Mentions
Project Name: Casa Cosmos
Designer: S-AR
Project Name: Highland Park Residence
Designer: Alterstudio Architecture
Editor’s Picks
Project Name: Meridian Residence
Designer: ROBERT KERR architecture design
Project Name: Tribeca Duplex
Designer: Ted Porter Architecture
Residential — Multiunit
2020 Best of Design Award for Residential — Multiunit: Louisa Flowers
Designer: LEVER Architecture
Architect of record: LRS Architects
Location: Portland, Oregon
The Louisa Flowers is the largest affordable housing development built in Portland in the past 50 years. The 12-story, 240-unit project is located in the Lloyd District, a commercially vibrant neighborhood in Northeast Portland with access to the city’s public streetcar and bus systems. Developed by Home Forward, the complex provides housing for residents, most earning 60 percent of the median family income or less, and 20 units have been set aside for survivors of domestic violence. The building name honors Louisa Flowers, a respected African American civic leader who settled in Portland in the late 1800s. This project speaks to her legacy by promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion in the same neighborhood in which she and her family resided.
Honorable Mentions
Project Name: MIRA
Designer: Studio Gang
Associate architects: Barcelon Jang Architecture and Magnusson Klemencic Associates
Project Name: Monterrey 55
Designer: Pérez Palacios Arquitectos Asociados
Editor’s Picks
Project Name: Celestina Garden and Fetters Apartments
Designer: MBH Architects in collaboration with Jon Worden Architects and MidPen Housing
Project Name: RISD North Hall
Designer: NADAAA
Residential — Mixed-Use
2020 Best of Design Award for Residential — Multiunit: ADOHI HALL
Designers: Leers Weinzapfel Associates, Modus Studio, Mackey Mitchell Architects, and OLIN
Location: Fayetteville, Arkansas
Adohi Hall at the University of Arkansas demonstrates a pioneering use of mass timber in student housing and an innovative approach to live-learn communities. Conceived as a “cabin in the woods,” Adohi is a serpentine band of rooms framed in CLT and clad in a light metal jacket, floating above landscaped courtyards evoking the ecology of Northwest Arkansas. The landscape and buildings are woven together as an extension of the forested hillside to create unique outdoor spaces with strong relationships to the social, workshop, and performance spaces within. Above, wings of suites and pods provide a variety of living configurations. The name of the new complex—adohi, Cherokee for “coming into the forest”—recognizes the enduring importance of wood and sustainable forestry to the region.
Honorable Mentions
Project Name: The Essex at Essex Crossing
Designer: Handel Architects
Project Name: Westgate1515
Designer: Lorcan O’Herlihy Architects [LOHA]
Project Name: PIER 4
Designer: SHoP Architects
Architect of record: CBT Architects
Restoration & Preservation
2020 Best of Design Award for Restoration & Preservation: Miles C. Bates House
Designer: Stayner Architects
Location: Palm Desert, California
This house was designed in 1954, completed in 1955, and listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2018. The one-bedroom, 900-square-foot dwelling doubled as a studio for the original client, an artist and a fixture on the Greater Palm Springs social scene. Under his ownership, the structure became a hub of social and artistic activity. Following its completion, a series of additions overtook the legibility of the house’s dramatic roofline, and after the house was unoccupied for a number of years, its structural and material integrity was threatened. Stayner Architects purchased the house from the City of Palm Desert in order to save the unique midcentury structure from destruction and to repurpose it for a new event and hospitality business.
Honorable Mentions
Project Name: Mount Auburn Cemetery–Bigelow Chapel Renovation and New Addition
Designer: William Rawn Associates, Architects
Project Name: SMUD HQ Rehabilitation
Designer: Dreyfuss + Blackford Architecture
Editor’s Picks
Project Name: Fire Island House
Designer: Andrew Franz Architect
Project Name: Upper West Side Townhouse
Designer: Architecture in Formation
Renovation
2020 Best of Design Award for Renovation: ROOFTOP PRIM
Designer: PRODUCTORA
Location: Colonia Juárez, Mexico City
The project is located on the rooftop of an early-20th century palace where cultural and festive events are held in the center of Mexico City. To prevent the occasional rains from interrupting activities organized in the courtyards, the owner of the property wanted to cover the three existing patios. Instead of making three independent interventions, PRODUCTORA generated one single proposal: a continuous roof structure measuring more than 164 feet in length, connecting the patios in a straight line and creating new covered surfaces in between them. The structure consists of 45 lightweight metal trusses, spaced almost four feet apart, dividing the weight evenly over the existing building and creating a rhythm along the roof.
Honorable Mentions
Project Name: One Embarcadero Center Lobby
Designer: Gensler
Project Name: The Century Project at the Space Needle
Designer: Olson Kundig
Editor’s Picks
Project Name: Seattle Asian Art Museum
Designer: LMN Architects
Project Name: Stanford School of Medicine 1651 Page Mill Road Renewal
Designer: HOK
