For more than three decades, the Davis Center has been the physical, intellectual, and programmatic heart of campus-wide efforts to build inclusive community on Williams’ campus.   The reimagined 26,350 sf Davis Center encompasses a major new addition, as well comprehensive renovations of the beloved Rice and Jenness Houses, creating a center with universal access and increased space to accommodate Minority Coalition (MinCo) student gatherings, meetings, dialogue, classes, socializing, and studying.

Learn more about the Davis Center project here: https://www.lwa-architects.com/project/davis-center/

Read article here: https://www.learningbydesignmagazine.com/pursuing-living-building-challenge-petal-certification

Winne has taken an unusual route to the field of architecture, passing first through training and practice as a physician in Canada with a degree from McGill University School of Medicine. She acknowledged her first passion for design returning to Yale where she was an undergraduate to complete a Master of Architecture.

A talented and highly effective project leader and team manager for over 25 years, Winne has developed an expertise for managing technically demanding complex projects and has led several of our largest higher education projects. Clients appreciate her insightful intelligence, depth of experience and ability to coordinate a large team of consultants from programming through construction with exceptional rigor and efficiency.

Winne has lectured on classroom design at the SCUP 2012 North Atlantic Regional Conference, and SCUP 2013 in Montreal. Her publications include co-authorship of the new chapter on Project Teams in the 15th Edition of the AIA Handbook and an article describing the new MGH Russell Museum, “A Bright New Face”, in Health Care Design Magazine.

Harvard University District Energy Facility received the American Institute of Architects Boston Society of Architects 2021 Honor Award for Design Excellence – Hobson Award
Jury Comment: “[Harvard District Energy Facility] is elegantly simple—or, an elegant reduction of a complex system into something somewhat understandable. Architects don’t always get to choose a program. We were excited about this infrastructure project with its compelling, jewel-like expression of the interior function on the exterior. Expertly executed from concept to detail, with a clarity apparent through elimination of any unnecessary elements. This is an exemplary presentation with clear case-study diagrams and design solution.”

Pictured here is the Harvard District Energy Facility Project team: (L to R) Irene Kang, AIA LEED AP BD+C, Andrea Leers FAIA, Jane Weinzapfel FAIA, Zhanina Boyadzhieva AIA, Winne Stopps, FAIA, LEEP AP BD+C, accepting the award.

As a firm, we encourage the next wave of women aspiring to be leaders in architecture and design to believe there’s a place for us in the design field. Let’s keep celebrating the achievements we have made!

Harvard University District Energy Facility received the 2021 Honor Awards for Design Excellence – Honor Award
Jury Comment: “[Harvard District Energy Facility] is elegantly simple—or, an elegant reduction of a complex system into something somewhat understandable. Architects don’t always get to choose a program. We were excited about this infrastructure project with its compelling, jewel-like expression of the interior function on the exterior. Expertly executed from concept to detail, with a clarity apparent through elimination of any unnecessary elements. This is an exemplary presentation with clear case-study diagrams and design solution.”

Center for Engineering, Innovation, and Sciences received the 2021 Higher Education Facilities Design Awards – Award

Jury Comment: “The Center for Engineering, Innovation, and Sciences was seminal in establishing “place” and creating a single building designed to encourage cross- pollination of areas of study. The connection between the quad and Parker Street reinforces the campus edge while the program elements on display enable curiosity and inclusivity. As the technical anchor of the Colleges of the Fenway, this project bookends the connection between this and the other institutions that call the Fenway home while embodying the ethos of the campus and academic offerings in a highly entrepreneurial setting.”

Richard and Nancy Donahue Family Academic Arts Center received 2021 Higher Education Facilities Design Award – Citation
Jury Comment: “The jury found this investment in community, education, and the arts to be the type of transformative work we hope will be emblematic of architecture’s future. We had the privilege of reviewing a project that repurposed an existing building, artfully fulfilling many of the submission requirements, while contributing to a sense of place in a truly transformative manner. As the original build approaches its sesquicentennial, we hope that both Middlesex Community College and the City of Lowell find this to be a catalytic project that enables the future success of both institution and city.” Richard and Nancy Donahue Family Academic Arts Center

Adohi Hall received the 2021 Housing Design Award – Citation

Jury Comment: “Adohi Hall at the University of Arkansas demonstrates exciting new potentials for sustainable student-housing design. Most notable is the project’s deep exploration of wood as a structural material: timber columns, beams, floor panels, and intricate trusswork greatly reduce embodied carbon and imbue living spaces with warmth, texture, and connection to the region’s woodland ecology. The building’s serpentine plan shapes a series of intimate and inviting outdoor rooms, each activated by shared spaces for learning, socializing, dining, recreation, and artistic creation. The design skillfully merges architecture, landscape, and program to create a strong sense of community within the context of a large university.”

Adohi Hall received the 2021 Sustainable Design Award – Award

Jury Comment: “[Adohi Hall] is extremely impressive in taking mass timber design to the next level: scaling up to a major residence hall complex for a public university with beautifully designed public rooms and courtyards. The inventive hybrid trusses in the common rooms, integrating both timber and steel, are an excellent example of thoughtful sustainable design. The interior biophilic motifs address student wellness and relate to the surrounding forested environment. The exposed materials provide a connection to the wood CLT as a finish, which reduces the number of materials used but also brings a warm element to the spaces. Hopefully, other projects will draw attention to this type of construction within the public-bid realm.”

http://designawards.architects.org/2021-award-winners/

Harvard University District Energy Facility is announced the winner for the Infrastructure category and the Innovation Center is announced as the winner for the Unbuilt Commercial Category.

“Here is a statement on the diverse and often unexpected realms where great architecture, great designers, and great products are appearing, across the North American continent and beyond.” —Aaron Seward A’N

Harvard District Energy Facility was described by the jury:

“Often the architecture of infrastructure is at best an afterthought. This amazing District Energy Facility shows us both how and why design is essential to a livable environment.”

—Carol Ross Barney

Link to Announcement
Link to Digital Publication

Happy to announce that we’ve been selected as part of the newest cohort of the Northwest Arkansas Design Excellence program! We’re excited to work with the selection committee and the Walton Family Foundation to shape and strengthen the community by ​​helping create inclusive public spaces.

Link to Walton Family Foundation Northwest Arkansas Design Excellence Program website and full list of program participants: https://www.waltonfamilyfoundation.org/grants/design-excellence/selected-firms

Link to the news release: https://www.waltonfamilyfoundation.org/about-us/newsroom/walton-family-foundation-builds-on-design-excellence-programs-diversity-breadth

“A Statement of Power at Harvard”

“The challenge was to wrap the working machinery of the DEF within an envelope that was “harmonious and dignified, but also spirited.” Ms. Weinzapfel took its tumble of pipes, pumps, tanks and generators, and encased it within a lattice of anodized aluminum fins, all pointed upward. They are highly attractive, resembling airplane wings, and they look as if they should move. (They don’t.) They are canted at various angles around the building; to the south they screen the sun, to the north they welcome it, and at various other points they offer tantalizing views of the machinery within.” – The Wall Street Journal

Leers Weinzapfel Associates new 56,000 sf District Energy Facility (DEF) sets the stage for a state-of-the-art, cost effective, and sustainable utility generation and distribution system for Harvard’s Allston campus that also makes a significant contribution to its urban design.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-statement-of-powerat-harvard-district-energy-facility-harvard-university-leers-weinzapfel-architects-11640030064?page=1 

“Metal fins and abundant glass boldly announce Harvard University’s District Energy Facility (DEF) which, quite literally, provides windows on the building’s state-of-the-art equipment. The DEF, designed by Leers Weinzapfel Associates, efficiently generates electricity and hot and cold water for the school’s expansion into Boston’s Allston neighborhood. The team designed the LEED Gold natural gas–fired cogeneration plant—the first building in what will be a dense urban campus—for flexibility, anticipating future technological innovation and demands on capacity. Conceived to withstand flooding, dampen sound, and reduce emissions, the resilient structure includes a thermal energy-storage tank, backup equipment, and self-restart capabilities. These high-performance inner workings guided the team’s approach for the building that contains them. “We wanted the facility to have an elegant, refined exterior, but one that didn’t compromise any of the equipment’s requirements,” says founding principal Jane Weinzapfel. A galvanized-steel structure supports the glazed curtain wall and anodized-aluminum fins, which are rotated at different angles on each side of the cube for varying degrees of opacity. The DEF facilitates engagement with an “energy-on-display” model, Weinzapfel explains. “It would be a shame to button it all up.”” – Architectural Record

See feature here: https://www.architecturalrecord.com/articles/15395-snapshot-district-energy-facility-by-leers-weinzapfel-associates-on-harvards-allston-campus

This project reuses and adds to a vacant 1960’s library in the heart of the medical school quad, transforming it into a vibrant administrative and social center for the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and a hub for the north campus.  The 32,995sf Anonymous Hall project—as well as new entrances for its surrounding buildings, a wide pedestrian bridge, and new circulation between buildings—is transforming the college’s least compelling area into a well-scaled part of this historic campus.

The addition’s main floor houses the building’s lobby and a café, with an adjacent terrace overlooking a newly formed green.  Tied together by a spiral object stair visible from the south lawn, the building’s upper floors contain faculty offices, classrooms, and places for student gathering. The penthouse level features a solar-paneled canopy and a south-facing planted terrace that overlooks the iconic main campus.

The graduate student lounge in the walkout basement opens to a protected courtyard below a pedestrian bridge.

A structure in a cold climate, the choices of high R value terra-cotta-clad walls, solar panel canopy, triple-glazed windows, and south-facing glass with an expanded metal interlayer to limit summer sun create a building with a low embodied energy that approaches net zero energy use.  This low operational carbon building is further improved by reusing the existing 1960’s concrete and steel structure achieving low embodied carbon use.

See the project featured here: https://www.wanawards.com/finalists/anonymous-hall-dartmouth-college-ad0002

See the all finalists and winners here: https://www.wanawards.com/winners-2021