Floating conference room
Stamford, CT – Amenta Emma Architects recently received the Under 50 Employees Honor Award in the 2018 AIA CT Business Architecture Awards for the Quinnipiac University Brand Strategy Group project in Hamden.
For this project, a 19th-century house was transformed into a 21st-century powerhouse for ideas for Quinnipiac University’s Brand Strategy Group. This organization, which is responsible for the university’s marketing, communications, brand identity, and digital initiatives, required a collaborative, contemporary environment.
Conference room
A playful, unconventional response evokes the excitement of a start-up business. A vertical atrium unites upper and lower work spaces and floods the building with natural light. The renovation provides private and team areas with clever applications such as cork wall and ceiling tiles, making them not only acoustically absorptive but tackable for big ideas.
Exterior
The Business Architecture Awards honor architects for solving business problems for Connecticut clients, thereby demonstrating the power of architecture to shape business performance, improve people’s lives, and provide a value-added service to clients in a business setting that far exceeds the costs of that service.
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The jury commented, “This is a startling combination of exterior preservation and interior innovation. It seemed impossible to create, but reflects a new generation of thought on space planning. The integration of workforce with mission pushed the vocabulary for an open, collaborative space. There was not one false, wasted move.” Said Elizabeth Bender, assistant director of capital planning, “The new design is purposeful and, in its transformation, embodies the same values as our new brand; to advance our tradition; cutting a new path versus following the pack.”
