North Chiller Plant at UMass Amherst receives Architect’s Newspaper Best of Design Award

The Architect’s Newspaper notes that this years categories expanded to 47 and received over 800 submissions. Declaring that the 2019 awards are the most successful yet, the jury selected projects from firms both big and small across America that exemplified quality design.

This year, the UMass Amherst North Chiller Plant was awarded Best of Design in Infrastructure. The new 10,592-square-foot chiller plant, a component of the university’s 2012 Campus Master Plan, is designed to increase the reliability and capacity of chilled water service throughout the growing north campus core by reimagining the existing regional plant it replaces. The design of the North Chiller Plant was proposed to remain outside a view shed from the center of campus to the Northwest, referred to as “The Feather” in the Campus Master Plan. Its innovative parallelogram shape accommodates new chillers parked at an angle inside the narrow building, while allowing important campus views from the existing engineering building.

View the online cornerstone article announce all of the winners, honorable mentions, and editors’ picks of this year’s AN Best of Design Awards: https://archpaper.com/2019/12/2019-an-best-of-design-awards/#gallery-0-slide-11 


The Sophia Gordon Center for Performing Arts Receives a BSA Accessibility Award

The renovation of the Sophia Gordon Creative & Performing Arts Center transforms a mid-century theater facility into vibrant theatrical teaching, performance, and support spaces for a new generation of students. Originally constructed in 1958 as a general use auditorium on a developing campus, the 650-seat Mainstage Theater building was ripe for reimagining, longer meeting the current needs of the theater department and the wider university.

 

See all recipients here: https://www.architects.org/2019-design-awards/accessible-design

The North Chiller Plant at UMass Amherst Receives a BSA Honor Award in Design Excellence

Each year the Boston Society of Architects/AIA (BSA/AIA), often in collaboration with other organizations, sponsors awards programs to honor design excellence in Massachusetts, throughout New England, and beyond. By recognizing remarkable achievements in architecture, the design community highlights exemplary projects that serve as inspiration for practitioners. Equally important, these awards elevate the potential for positive impact that architecture has on quality of life for everyone.

See all recipients here: https://www.architects.org/2019-design-awards/honor-awards-for-design-excellence 

Co-Founders and Principals Andrea Leers and Jane Weinzapfel featured in Women In Architecture

“Jane and I came to the beginning of our profession in what I would call the second wave of feminism, after the first wave of suffragettes.That was the 1970s, there was a real woman’s movement in the United States. And we worked very hard and long to advance the equality of women at that time, despite enormous differences. Then we went through a long period of thinking it was fixed.” -Andrea Leers, FAIA

“Women’s right are continuously fixed now. This is since Athens, when women were put back in their house, after centuries of being out in the world.” – Jane Weinzapfel, FAIA

View Here: https://caviar.archi/women-in-architecture/

“University of Arkansas debuts the largest mass timber building in the U.S”
Archinect features Adohi Hall in latest feature

Adohi Hall is 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.
Read Article Here: https://archinect.com/news/article/150172460/university-of-arkansas-debuts-the-largest-mass-timber-building-in-the-u-s 

“America’s largest timber building is complete, and it may be the future of construction. What’s old is new again—especially in the building industry.”
Fast Company Features the new Adohi Hall, largest Mass Timber building in the Nation

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.

Read Full Article here: https://www.fastcompany.com/90436560/americas-largest-timber-building-is-complete-and-it-may-be-the-future-of-construction

America’s Largest Mass Timber Building Opens at the University of Arkansas
Architect Newspaper features Adohi Hall in "Out of the Woods"

Principal Andrea Leers FAIA is quoted in the article saying, “We drew inspiration from the regional context of the Ozarks, creating a living/learning environment powerful enough to be a destination remote from the center of campus, and the wood-based construction system we developed forges a bond between setting, human comfort, and sustainability.”

Read Full Article Here: https://archpaper.com/2019/11/adohi-hall-university-of-arkansas/