2020 Best of Design Award for Public & Social Impact: Memorial to Enslaved Laborers
at the University of Virginia
Designer: Höweler + Yoon Architecture in collaboration with Mabel O. Wilson, Gregg Bleam Landscape Architect, Frank Dukes, and Eto Otitigbe
Location: Charlottesville, Virginia
The Memorial to Enslaved Laborers at the University of Virginia (UVA) honors the lives, labor, and perseverance of the community of enslaved African Americans who built UVA and sustained the daily life of faculty, students, and administrators at the university. Nearly a decade in the making, the memorial was designed by Höweler + Yoon in collaboration with historian and designer Dr. Mabel O. Wilson of Studio&, Gregg Bleam Landscape Architect, community facilitator Dr. Frank Dukes, and artist Eto Otitigbe. The site’s formal dedication has been postponed because of the ongoing COVID-19 health crisis, but in the interim, the memorial has been spontaneously inaugurated as a gathering place for group and individual contemplation during the national protests against racialized violence.
Public
Honorable Mentions
Project Name: Conference House Park Pavilion
Designer: Sage and Coombe Architects
Project Name: FDNY Rescue Company 2
Designer: Studio Gang
Editors’ Picks:
Project Name: Seattle-Tacoma International Airport Concourse D Annex
Designer: HOK
Project Name: High Line Section 3, Phase 2
Construction manager: Sciame Construction
Architect: Diller Scofidio + Renfro
Landscape architect: James Corner Field Operations
Social Impact
Honorable Mentions
Project Name: Javits Center Medical Station & Temporary Hospital
Designer: di Domenico + Partners
Project Name: MLK1101 Supportive Housing
Designer: Lorcan O’Herlihy Architects [LOHA]
Editors’ Picks:
Project Name: DineOut NYC
Designer: Rockwell Group
Project Name: Girls Inc. of Memphis, Urban Centers–South Park & LDT
Designer: archimania
Urban Design
2020 Best of Design Award for Urban Design: The Peninsula
Designer: WXY architecture + urban design and Body Lawson Associates with Elizabeth Kennedy Landscape Architect
Location: The Bronx, New York City
WXY architecture + urban design, in partnership with Body Lawson Associates, was commissioned by the New York City Economic Development Corporation to develop a master plan to transform the 4.75-acre site of the former Spofford Juvenile Detention Center into a mixed-use community with five new buildings containing affordable housing; commercial, retail, and community facilities; light-industrial space; and recreational space. Material choices for the buildings were guided by the residential and industrial context of the Hunts Point neighborhood, with apartments predominantly brick and commercial spaces concrete, steel, and glass. A network of publicly accessible open spaces connects the buildings with the neighborhood. The landscape blends native plants and includes salvaged rock that recalls local natural ledge formations.
Honorable Mentions
Project Name: Eastern Market Neighborhood Framework and Stormwater Management Network Plan
Designer: Utile
Project Name: Moscone Center Expansion
Landscape architect: CMG Landscape Architecture
Architects: Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) and Mark Cavagnero Associates
Editors’ Picks:
Project Name: Essex Market and The Market Line
Designer: SHoP Architects
Associate architects: Hugh A. Boyd Architects and Formactiv
Project Name: Mulberry Commons
Designer: Sage and Coombe Architects
Landscape
2020 Best of Design Award for Landscape: Mill 19 at Hazelwood Green
Designer: TEN x TEN
Design architect: MSR Design
Associate architect: R3A
Location: Pittsburgh
Nested within the armature of a former steel mill along Pittsburgh’s Monongahela River, three new mixed-use buildings are integrated in the shadows of trusses clad with a photovoltaic array. The quarter-mile-long structure celebrates the history of labor and the potential of a revitalized future while creating new landscapes from industrial remnants. An event plaza, a stormwater channel, disturbance-adapted gardens, and a public loggia with salvaged steel furniture define a reimagined public realm that embraces the past.
Mill 19, an LEED v4 Gold–certified project, lays the groundwork for a new type of regional economic hub that celebrates Pittsburgh’s industrial legacy, initiates renewal, and rebuilds a healthy relationship between the community, the site, and the river.
Honorable Mentions
Project Name: Chicago Botanic Garden: Regenstein Learning Campus
Landscape architect: Mikyoung Kim Design
Local landscape architect: Jacobs/Ryan Associates
Architect: Booth Hansen
Project Name: Water Conservation Garden at Red Butte Garden
Designer: Studio Outside
Editors’ Picks:
Project Name: Houston Botanic Garden
Landscape architects: West 8 urban design & landscape architecture and Clark Condon Associates
Architects: Overland Partners and Dykema Architects
Project Name: The Aga Khan Garden, Alberta
Landscape architect: Nelson Byrd Woltz Landscape Architects
Local landscape architect and architect: DIALOG
Infrastructure
2020 Best of Design Award for Infrastructure: The New St. Pete Pier
Design architect: Rogers Partners
Executive architect: ASD/SKY
Design landscape architect: Ken Smith Workshop
Executive landscape architect: Booth Design Group
Location: St. Petersburg, Florida
Beyond simply replacing an aging icon, Rogers Partners’ new St. Pete Pier constructs the basis for a sustainable relationship between the natural and built environments. The 12-acre pier extends the urban and recreational features of St. Petersburg into the bay through a multitude of flexible programs and amenities, including an education center, a tilted event lawn, dining venues, and places for fishing, kayaking, boating, and swimming. Along a naturalized shore edge, a breakwater and coastal thicket improve the water quality and marine animal and shorebird communities. By enhancing existing renewable coastal resources and providing flood-resistant infrastructure, the St. Pete Pier improves coastline resiliency and models the future for sustainable bayside city living.
Honorable Mentions
Project Name: Brightline
Designer: Skidmore, Owings & Merrill in association with Zyscovich Architects
Project Name: PG&E Larkin Street Substation Expansion
Designer: TEF Design
Editors’ Picks:
Project Name: Grand Avenue Park Bridge
Designer: LMN Architects
Adaptive Reuse
2020 Best of Design Award for Adaptive Reuse: MuseumLab
Designer: Koning Eizenberg Architects
Architect of record: Perfido Weiskopf Wagstaff + Goettel Architects (PWWG)
Location: Pittsburgh
A historic Carnegie library’s legacy of educational innovation and access is reinvented as the MuseumLab. Opened in 1890, the library was one of the first free public libraries in the United States. It fell into disrepair after lightning struck the library’s clock tower and caused a three-ton piece of granite to crash through the roof. The library closed in 2006. Renovated in 2018, it now offers experimental art and technology programs for youth, a Title I charter middle school, and space for community events. Expedient interior alterations from the 1970s were stripped away to reconnect spaces, reintroduce daylight, and reveal the bones of the historic architecture. The resulting “beautiful ruin” has challenged conventions for both preservation and educational settings.
Honorable Mentions
Project Name: Preserve at 620
Designer: Nelsen Partners
Project Name: Rejuvenation of a Historic Powerhouse, San Francisco
Designer: Marcy Wong Donn Logan Architects
Editors’ Picks:
Project Name: 122 Community Arts Center
Designer: Deborah Berke Partners
Project Name: The Momentary
Designer: Wheeler Kearns Architects
Facades
2020 Best of Design Award for Facades: Victorian Music Box
Designer: CCY Architects
Location: Aspen, Colorado
This family compound marries a restored Victorian with a music-inspired modern addition affectionately called the Music Box, designed to accommodate guests as well as music recitals. A single material, Galvalume, bent with four-inch exposures, covers the Music Box’s roof and walls in a continuous, perforated, thin aluminum envelope. This skin was inspired by Frédéric Chopin’s Nocturne in E-flat Major, op. 9, no. 2. The perforated aluminum stands off the structure through a batten/rain screen system that allows light to pass through but maintains privacy for those inside. The design team broke down Chopin’s composition into its discrete elements to create a pattern that daylight superimposes on the building’s elevations.
Honorable Mentions
Project Name: 215–225 West 28th Street
Designer: DXA studio
Project Name: Bernard Zell Anshe Emet Day School Expansion
Designer: Wheeler Kearns Architects
Editors’ Picks:
Project Name: Willie and Donald Tykeson Hall, University of Oregon
Design architect: OFFICE 52 Architecture
Architect of record: Rowell Brokaw Architects
Project Name: Enlace New Offices
Designer: Canopy/Architecture + Design
Cultural
2020 Best of Design Award for Cultural: The REACH at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
Designer: Steven Holl Architects
Associate architect: BNIM
Landscape architect: Hollander Design Landscape Architects
Location: Washington, D.C.
As a “living memorial” for President John F. Kennedy, the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts takes an active position among the great presidential monuments in Washington, D.C. Through public events and stimulating art, the Kennedy Center offers a place where the community can engage and interact with artists across the full spectrum of the creative process. The REACH expansion, designed by Steven Holl Architects, adds much-needed rehearsal, education, and varied, flexible indoor and outdoor spaces to allow the center to continue to play a leadership role in providing artistic, cultural, and enrichment opportunities. The design for The REACH merges architecture with the landscape to expand the dimensions of this living memorial.
Honorable Mentions
Project Name: Burke Museum of Natural History & Culture
Designer: Olson Kundig
Project Name: Jones Beach Energy & Nature Center
Designer: nARCHITECTS
Editors’ Picks:
Project Name: A New Campus for the Rothko Chapel
Architect: Architecture Research Office
Landscape architect: Nelson Byrd Woltz
Project Name: Oklahoma Contemporary Arts Center
Designer: Rand Elliott Architects