Boston Society of Architects Fetes Bolling Building, Alex Krieger At Awards Gala

BOSTON—Dutch architecture firm Mecanoo Architecten and Watertown-based Sasaki brought home the distinguished Harleston Parker Medal for their design of the Bruce C. Bolling Municipal Building in Dudley Square, one of many awards honoring design excellence presented last week at the Boston Society of Architects (BSA) Design Awards Gala. The firms also walked away with the inaugural People’s Choice Award, an online competition organized by the BSA and hosted by bostonmagazine.com enabling members of the public to go head-to-head with the Harleston Parker Medal jury to decide which among this year’s finalists merits the title of “the most beautiful new building in the Boston.”

The evening also celebrated a number of milestones for the Boston Society of Architects as well as the industry as a whole, including the 150^th anniversary of the BSA, the 20th anniversary of ArchitectureBoston magazine, and the 25^th anniversary of KidsBuild!, a hands-on BSA family event where kids learn how to build a city. This is also the year in which Frank Lloyd Wright’s would have celebrated his 150th birthday.

“Tonight, as we celebrate the type of design excellence represented by our 2016 award winners, we can also applaud the longevity of a constantly evolving legacy of design excellence that has, and will continue, to shape this region and make it great,” Josiah Stevenson, FAIA, 2017 BSA president and principal at Leers Weinzapfel Associates (LWA), told the crowd of over 400 during the presentation ceremony.

Mecanoo and Sasaki were honored for designing the Bruce C. Bolling Municipal Building, transforming the iconic Ferdinand Furniture building into a 215,000-sf mixed-use structure housing the Boston Public Schools headquarters. It includes a green roof, state-of-the-art office space, civic and community meeting spaces and retail units. The structure also incorporates the historic Curtis and Waterman buildings, creating a triangle of historic facades connected by the new construction, and more importantly, anchoring the revitalized Dudley Square.

In addition to the Harleston Parker Medal and the People’s Choice Award, the BSA recognized firms for excellence in Accessible Design, Education Facilities Design, Sustainable Design, and Unbuilt Architecture and Design. Honor Awards for Design Excellence (top winners listed below) were also presented where winners were chosen in each category using a hierarchical structure, with the highest being the Honor Awards, representing “the best of the best”; Awards, feting “admirable and innovative work that is successfully executed from concept through construction”; and Citations, commendations for projects that “caught the jury’s eye for design, technical, humanitarian, or other reasons but were not formally awarded.”

The BSA also presentedAaron C. Bruckerhoff AIA, principal at Anmahian Winton Architects, with the newly created Earl R. Flansburgh Young Architects Award, which recognizes design excellence by an architect under 40. And the BSA Award of Honor, which recognizes “individuals whose lifetime contributions to the profession and to the BSA have been uncommonly profound,” was given to Alex Krieger, the founding Principal of Chan Krieger Sieniewicz, for his dedication to “improving the quality of place and life in our major urban areas through his career of teaching and practice.”

To launch the BSA’s 150th-anniversary celebrations and honor all the winners, BSA Space is showcasing the recipients of the 2016 BSA Design Awards through April 3^rd, and the exhibition is free and open to the public. Honor Awards winners are listed below, with a complete list of winners available on the BSA website:

Accessible Design

Honor Awards: Public Architecture

• Cambridge Seven Associates for New England Aquarium Giant Ocean Tank Renovation, Boston, Massachusetts
• Ellenzweig for Framingham State University Science Complex Addition and Renovations, Framingham, Massachusetts
• Weston & Sampson | Spurr Design Studio for Mayor Thomas M. Menino Park, Boston, Massachusetts

William D. Smith Memorial

• Kieran Timberlake for Harvard University River Houses, Cambridge, Massachusetts

Education Facilities Design

Honor Award: K-12 Facilities

• Flansburgh Architects for Arts & Innovation Center, Indian Mountain School, Lakeville, Conneticut

Honor Awards: Higher Education

• Bruner/Cott & Associates for Powerhouse, Amherst College, Amherst, Massachusetts
• CBT Architects for Western Dining Commons, Miami University, Oxford, Ohio
• designLAB architects with BSHM Architects for Arts Center, Seton Hill University, Greensburg, Pennsylvania

Sustainable Design

Honor Awards

• Architerra for Division of Fisheries and Wildlife Field Headquarters, Westborough, Massachusetts
• Bruner/Cott & Associates for R.W. Kern Center, Hampshire College, Amherst, Massachusetts

Unbuilt Architecture and Design

Honor Awards

• CannonDesign for Elms College Chapel, Chicopee, Massachusetts
• ORG Permanent Modernity with P-REX for African Agribusiness Knowledge Center, Afram Plains, Ghana

Honor Awards for Design Excellence

Honor Awards

• Machado and Silvetti Associates with Sweet Sparkman Architects for The Center for Asian Art in the Dr. Helga Wall-Apelt Gallery of Asian Art at the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota, Florida
• Paul Lukez Architecture for Proyecto Clamor de Paz, Guaimaca, Hondura

Josiah Stevenson, FAIA, 2017 BSA President

2017 BSA Boston Design Gala, Boston MA