2020 WAN Awards: materials winners

Concrete in Architecture

Gold:

Saint Mary's Student Chapel by Mark Cavagnero Associates

Nestled into the entry of Saint Mary’s College High School campus, the rise of the Student Chapel’s sleekly articulated white concrete provides an icon marking the community. The school’s mission of educating the underserved, and of striving to provide a sense of safety, calm, and comfort to their students has been manifested in a space that facilitates a journey from civic life into interior restoration, since opening its doors in 2018.

White concrete, glazing, Alabama limestone, and light American white oak set the tone for a space devoted to quiet for a community (high schoolers and their teachers) that can be otherwise bustling, noisy, and overwhelming.

Silver:

Santa Rosa Junior College Burbank Auditorium by Mark Cavagnero Associates

Santa Rosa Junior College sought to modernize its 80 year old Burbank Auditorium by transforming and updating all interior spaces to support its popular performing arts program while preserving the building’s historic shell in keeping with the heritage character of the campus. As the main theatrical venue for the District, Luther Burbank Auditorium has served students and the community since the 1930s. While adored, the heritage brick theater could not properly support the college’s instructional theater program or the intensive Summer Repertory Theater program that brings performers, directors and technicians from across the country.

Through the introduction of energy efficient lighting, enhanced building envelope and use of a geothermal heating and cooling system, the building has been made ZNE (Zero Net Energy) Ready - leading the way for a more sustainable campus.

Bronze:

Bechtel Family Center for Ocean Education and Leadership - Monterey Bay Aquarium by Mark Cavagnero Associates

With growing demand for its one-of-a-kind educational offerings, the Monterey Bay Aquarium spearheaded a new Education Center, marking the largest physical expansion to-date of the nearly 35-year-old institution. Completed in 2019, the facility is a new addition to the historic Cannery Row and offers an immersive educational experience with expansive ocean views throughout.

In a nod to the district’s industrial history and vernacular, the new 25,500 sq ft four-story facility is designed as an infill concrete-frame structure with corrugated fiber-cement panels that echo the composition of the Aquarium’s main building a few blocks away. Large expanses of glass connect activities within to the streetscape and Pacific Ocean beyond. An open staircase unites three floors of work and educational spaces including the heart of the project: four STEM learning labs with live animal exhibits supported by a closed loop seawater life support system.

Glass in Architecture

Gold:

Trees-Parency by Archi-Solution Workshop Ltd

“Trees-Parency” is a workshop built for a combined space of design and fabrication. Expanded from a carrier-made structure with a central atrium, this house was originally for an industrial robot arm, which lately became a chief labor during this expansion.

For enlarging the capacity of the ground floor , a corridor by U-glass was attached on the south side. In order to properly accommodate a neighbor tree, whose trunk runs into the proposed space, a curve line was introduced to avoid its mass. Strategically, this curve was dashed into discrete segments regarding the module of U-glass, which also represent the corner seams of each section. Based on the ASW’s experience of digital fabrication, the in-situ robot arm was transformed into a flexible cutting system that was data-driven by codes from the Grasshopper in Rhinoceros.

Wood in Architecture

Gold:

Adohi Hall by A design collaborative of Leers Weinzapfel Associates, Modus Studio, Mackey Mitchell, OLIN

Adohi Hall, a 708-bed student housing complex at the University of Arkansas, demonstrates a pioneering use of cross-laminated timber (CLT) and an innovative approach to live-learn communities, with embedded arts and academic spaces. Completed in August 2019, it is the largest mass timber building to date (202,000 sq ft), and the first large-scale mass timber university housing in the US, supporting the economic potential of Arkansas’ burgeoning timber industry.

The significant use of wood as the main structural material takes advantage of the carbon sequestration potential of this low embodied energy, renewable resource. The CLT floor slabs and glulam structural frame are sustainably-sourced spruce-pine-fir. The typical room modules allow for cost-effective layout of modular CLT panels and glulam framework, and the massing maximizes the building height permitted in Type IIIB construction. Locally harvested Arkansas cypress is used as a finish material throughout the building. Salvaged wood is preserved and incorporated into custom furniture.