Wentworth Institute of Technology Center for Engineering, Innovation and Sciences and Adohi Hall at University of Arkansas each have received 2021 American Architecture Awards in the Schools and Universities category.

“Now celebrating the 27th year, The American Architectural Awards® are the nation’s highest and most prestigious distinguished building awards program that honor new and cutting-edge design in the United States. This annual program, organized by both our institutions, also promotes American architecture and design to our public audience in the U.S. and abroad. This year, the Museum received a record number of projects for new buildings, landscape architecture, and urban planning from the most important firms practicing in the U.S. and globally. From a short list of 400 projects, the 2021 Jury for Awards was held in Australia, and over 125 projects were selected by a distinguished group of Miami architects, educators, and developers.” – Chicago Athenaeum American Architecture Awards

A full list of winning projects for 2021 is attached and can be viewed soon at our Museum’s website at www.chi-athenaeum.org or at www.americanarchitectureawards.com.

Learn more: https://www.americanarchitectureawards.com/award-category.html?cat=14&page=2

“Josiah Stevenson, FAIA, Principal in Charge and Senior Associate Kevin J. Bell , with Leers Weinzapfel will present the Anonymous Hall project at Dartmouth College, part of a wider campus renewal plan. Metrics show the project is close to net zero energy use. The building was stripped to its columns and slabs to remove hazardous materials in the existing library walls before construction could begin. As a reused concrete structure in a cold climate, the choices of highly insulated terra-cotta-clad walls, triple glazed windows, and a photovoltaic canopy created a building with low embodied energy that approaches net zero energy usage. The facade system is first-of-its-kind in the US, comprising multiple advanced technologies including vacuum insulated panels, krypton filled triple glazing, metal mesh integral shading, and toggle-held structural glazing (2″ IGUs).” – Continuing Education Center

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Learn more about the Anonymous Hall project here

Adohi Hall was finalist for two World Architecture Festival Design Awards.

The Adohi Hall team gave live presentations to the jury for the categories of Housing and Best Use of Certified Timber.

Adohi Hall is the first large-scale mass timber residence hall and living learning setting and was largest cross laminated timber (CLT) building in the United States at its completion in 2019. Leers Weinzapfel led a design collaborative including Modus Studio (Fayetteville, AR), Mackey Mitchell Architects (St. Louis), and OLIN (Philadelphia), in the realization of this new campus gateway project. The 202,027-square-foot Adohi Hall creates a new residential college with emphasis on a creative live learn environment within a relaxed, informal, tree-lined landscape that re-conceptualizes university housing.

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“With an Array of Sustainability Measures, Dartmouth’s Newest Building Stands Above the Pack

The architectural retrofit by Leers Weinzapfel Associates replaces a midcentury clunker with a cutting-edge, net-zero student center.” – Metropolis Magazine

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Learn more about the project here

The largest cross laminated timber (CLT) building in the United States and the first large-scale mass timber residence hall and living learning setting. Leers Weinzapfel led a design collaborative including Modus Studio (Fayetteville, AR), Mackey Mitchell Architects (St. Louis), and OLIN (Philadelphia), in the realization of this new campus gateway project. The 202,027-square-foot Adohi Hall creates a new residential college with emphasis on a creative live learn environment within a relaxed, informal, tree-lined landscape that re-conceptualizes university housing.

The AIA Housing Awards, “emphasize good housing as a necessity of life, a sanctuary for the human spirit, and a valuable national resource. Recipients show the world how beauty, safety, sustainability, and comfort can come together.”

The Judges commented, “Lovely secondary and shared spaces and illustration of the use of timber throughout, including in dorm rooms. The building also considers and reflects the broader landscape, linking interior and exterior spaces through a transparent ground plane.”

Learn more about this project here

See the award announcement here

In celebration of Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month The Boston Society of Architects is sharing profiles on Asian Americans in the profession. Learn more about Tom Sung-Jin Chung FAIA, Principal at Leers Weinzapfel Associates.

We are honored to receive the 2021 Mayor Thomas M. Menino Legacy Award for the Richard and Nancy Donahue Family Academic Arts Center. The Mayor Thomas M. Menino Legacy Award celebrates projects that are transformative, catalytic, embrace the community, create partnerships, and revitalize the best of the past to make something good for the future.

We are proud supporters of the AIA 2030 Commitment. See how we’ve worked to get to net zero with our Anonymous Hall project at Dartmouth College, transforming this 1960s library into the north campus social center.

The  John W Olver Design Building at UMass Amherst was featured in the 2021 Mass Timber Design Manual in the Mass Timber and Sustainability section. The manual was also featured in Architect’s Newspaper. It’s an excellent resource from WoodWorks and includes a Forward by LWA Principal Tom Chung.

“The college asked our advice about incorporating two vacant buildings on the site for the initiative. Our assessment determined that one, a lab building, should be demolished, and the former Medical School Library should be transformed and expanded as a gateway and social center for the north quad. With its high-tech, efficient curtain wall; solar canopy; and high R-value walls, carbon savings exceed all expectations, and design models show the project energy use approaches net-zero” explained Leers Weinzapfel principal-in-charge Josiah Stevenson

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