The American Institute of Architects (AIA) has named the ten winning projects of this year’s Architecture Awards, an annual program that “celebrates the best contemporary architecture and highlights the many ways buildings and spaces can improve lives.”
Given that the Architecture Awards are open to new construction, renovations, and restorations that have been completed anywhere in the world (by an architect or architecture firm licensed in the United States) by, in this year’s case, January, 1 2016, the winning 2021 projects are wide-ranging and exceptional in their own unique regards. They include a Minneapolis museum expansion, a light rail station-slash-civic gathering space in Seattle, the renovation and conversion of a landmark airline terminal designed by Eero Saarinen at New York’s John F. Kennedy Airport, and a cluster of rehabilitated 1930s-era log cabins (and new construction) at a fabled Tennessee artist residency. Although projects in British Columbia appear twice on the list as does one located on the remote western coast of Senegal, this year’s winners are an otherwise Usonian bunch and evenly distributed throughout the continental U.S. Two winning firms, the Boston-based Payette and Minneapolis’s HGA, also appeared on the 2021 AIA Cote Top Ten list, announced just last week, for different projects. (In the case of Payette, both wins were for collegiate buildings dedicated to science education).
Many of these projects have also appeared on—and won awards from—AN in the past.
The 2021 Architecture Awards jury was comprised of: Kim Yao, AIA, Chair, Architecture Research Office (ARO), New York City; Phillip Bernstein, FAIA, Yale Architecture School; Melissa Daniel, Assoc. AIA, Amentum, Annapolis Junction, Maryland; Magdalena Glen-Schieneman, AIA, MGS Architecture, Marina del Rey, California; Jim McDonald, FAIA, A&E Architects, Missoula, Montana; Marianne McKenna, AIA KPMB Architects, Toronto; Connor Merritt, AIAS, Washington University in St. Louis; Keith Lashley, AIA, HKS, Winter Haven, Florida; and JoAnn Wilcox, AIA, Mithun, Seattle.
And now, this year’s AIA Architecture Award-winning projects, with each project name linking back to its full Architecture Award profile:
Fass School and Teachers’ Residences| Toshiko Mori Architect (Fass, Senegal)
The Lamplighter School Innovation Lab | Marlon Blackwell Architects (Dallas)
Loghaven Artist Residency | Sanders Pace Architecture (Knoxville, Tennessee)
Martin’s Lane Winery | Olson Kundig (Kelowna, British Columbia)
Northeastern University Interdisciplinary Science and Engineering Complex| Payette (Boston)
The Polygon Gallery| Patkau Architects (North Vancouver, British Columbia)
Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community Justice Center | Gould Evans (Scottsdale, Arizona)
Sound Transit University of Washington Station | LMN Architects (Seattle)
TWA Hotel | Beyer Blinder Belle (New York City)
Walker Art Center Expansion | HGA (Minneapolis)
