Boston, MA – Payette recently announced that four of its projects have been recognized with Awards for Design Excellence by the Boston Society of Architects (BSA). The firm was credited with one honor and three merit awards in the 2010 competition that evaluates Massachusetts buildings and architects, winning four of the 20 awards given out this year. In addition, the firm was notified that its Center for Biotechnology and Life Sciences building at the University of Rhode Island was recognized as a merit award winner by the American Institute of Architects (AIA), Rhode Island chapter.
“Regional AIA Award Programs are a significant benchmark of architectural excellence, and the evaluations of the jury represent the highest level of design appraisal in our field. And, adding another AIA award to our list is a thrill for our design team and our clients,” said James H. Collins, FAIA, LEED AP, president of Payette. “We value these assessments and are extremely proud to have won a total of 10 design awards this year.”
Boston Society of Architects Honor Awards Program
Of the four firm projects recognized, Payette received an Honor Award for Design Excellence for the Gary C. Comer Geochemistry Building at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University, and three Merit Awards for Design Excellence for the Center for Biotechnology and Life Sciences (CBLS) Building at the University of Rhode Island; the Integrated Sciences Building (ISB) at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst; and the MEDITECH – Medical Information Technology Computer Science Building located in Fall River, Massachusetts.
“This year we saw 116 projects [and] we recognized 20 projects and one honorable mention at the end of our day. They all share intentionality, consideration, restraint and control,” the BSA Awards jury stated in its formal declaration. “Every project that we honored was presented in a way that was beautiful, educational, and intelligent. We were surprised and excited to see such genuinely remarkable work.”
Regarding the Gary C. Comer Geochemistry Building, a 70,000 SF science building at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University, the jury commented “Every move is well considered in this highly specialized, well-presented research center. The building is so fully integrated with the landscape that the 70 scientists working in it must feel like it is a living thing. It is a handsome structure that carries off a residential feel, which is most unusual in the context of such heavy programming.”
The Center for Biotechnology and Life Sciences (CBLS) Building at the University of Rhode Island is a 142,000 SF laboratory housing state-of-the-art research and teaching spaces that the jury found to be “nicely crafted and well edited.” The Integrated Sciences Building (ISB) at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, is a 173,000 SF life sciences teaching and research facility with “a nuanced skin that draws an interesting relationship between unlike materials, including brick, glass and steel” according to the jury. The MEDITECH – Medical Information Technology Computer Science Building sits on 17 waterfront acres in Fall River, Massachusetts and was commended by the jury for referencing “the town’s mill heritage while using contemporary materials.”
The BSA Honor Awards for Design Excellence program evaluates structures or buildings of any size or project type anywhere in the world designed by a Massachusetts architect or firm; or any structure, building or project type built in Massachusetts by any architect or firm anywhere in the world. Judging is based solely on how design excellence in informed by aesthetic functional, contextual, sustainability, or social characteristics.
AIA/ Rhode Island Annual Design Awards Competition
The Center for Biotechnology and Life Sciences building at the University of Rhode Island is a 142,000 GSF centerpiece of the University’s North district on its Kingston, Rhode Island campus. Built to accommodate pharmacy, chemistry, physics and health science programs and their corresponding laboratories, this building is both the University’s and the state’s response towards stimulating economic growth and workforce development in biotechnology and the life sciences.
“We are pleased that this project was recognized,” continues Collins. “URI has made a profound commitment to its campus and it is nice to see these efforts acknowledged.”
Recognizing that the building creates an outdoor room, the jury felt that this project reinforces existing pedestrian circulation, and applauds the comfortable contrast between delicate stair railings and smooth wooden walls. The result is “a complicated program resolved into simplicity for clarity” states one juror.
Highly committed to excellence in architecture, the AIA/RI Annual Design Awards competition celebrates outstanding works of architecture. The program’s goal is to recognize achievements in design as well as to honor the project teams and clients who work with them to create and enhance the built environment.
