Call for Entries: 2014 Design Awards

Join the Virginia Society of the American Institute of Architects, the Virginia Center for Architecture, and Inform magazine in a celebration of the very best work from designers working from Virginia.

The Awards for Excellence in Architecture recognize outstanding design— both built and un-built — in five categories: Contextual Design, Residential Design, Architecture, Historic Preservation and Interior Design.  All entries must be the work of architects who have an office in Virginia or are members (including associate members) of the Virginia Society AIA. The location of projects is not restricted, but built work must have been completed after Jan. 1, 2007. Un-built work will also be considered, as long as it was commissioned by a client as opposed to hypothetical work completed in the mode of research or academic training.

Awards certificates are presented each November at Architecture Exchange East, the Virginia Society’s annual conference. They are also honored during the Visions for Architecture gala, in Inform magazine, and serve as the subject of an annual exhibition at the Virginia Center for Architecture.

The 2014 Awards for Excellence in Architecture are sponsored by Hanbury Evans Wright Vlattas + Company, GeoEnvironmental Resources, and Jack Davis, FAIA.

DEADLINES

Entries: 5 p.m. on July 7, 2014
Project submissions: 5 p.m. on July 25, 2014

FEES

VS AIA Members: $190 first project; $160 each additional project
Non-member Architects (with an office in Va.):  $245 first project; $215 each additional project
VSAIA Associate Members: $80 each project

CATEGORIES

[adrotate banner=”55″]Contextual Design
Buildings do not exist in isolation. The Award for Contextual Design recognizes outstanding architecture that perceptibly reflects the history, culture, and physical environment of the place in which it stands and that, in turn, contributes to the function, beauty, and meaning of its larger context. Evaluation criteria include:

  • Does the design contribute to the fabric of the surrounding physical context through tangible qualities such as scale, form, materials, and architectural vocabulary?
  • Does the design demonstrate an understanding of the history and culture of the place and embrace traditions relevant to its context?
  • Does the design creatively embody the identity or mission of the client?

Requirements for submission should include a description of the context and how this context is reflected in the design, as well as images (photographs or drawings; at least two) that distinctly reveal the surrounding context of the project.

Residential Design
Aesthetic appeal and functionality are two long-established criteria for home design. More frequently, especially in the last several years, families have also been looking for affordability and resource efficiency. The jury will focus on the issues of:

  • Design that suits the needs of the home owner or resident, regardless of any particular style, and is easily maintained, filled with adequate natural light and fresh air, energy and water efficient, and is universally accessible.
  • Community building, in that the residence is well-sited with respect to views and amenities such as transit, shopping, recreation, and congregation.

Submissions should include a description of the sustainability and community-building programmatic aspects of the residence, interior and exterior photographs, plans, and/or drawings, and a site plan.

Architecture
Designers may submit projects of all types (including residential) for consideration in the Architecture category. In their deliberations, the jury will consider aesthetics, adherence to the client program, proven and projected building performance, and concept development. As with all categories, entrants will submit a project description and five pages of illustration, each of which may contain plans, sections, renderings, photographs, and captions, as the entrant deems suitable to describe the outstanding elements of the project.

Historic Preservation
The Historic Preservation category focuses specifically on excellence in strategies, tactics, and technologies that advance the art, craft, and science of preserving historically significant buildings and sites. The jury will also take into consideration adherence to local, state, and national criteria for historic preservation.

Interiors
Interior architecture projects of distinction will evince mastery of composition, functionality, material and color palettes, and well-integrated adherence to the highest levels of accessibility, health and safety, environmental, and occupant-comfort considerations, standards, and regulations. Submissions will highlight accommodation of project goals, including the client’s specific programmatic requirements, in a single page of text supplemented with five pages of illustrations in PDF format.

The Juries

The juries for each of the five categories comprise architects, educators, and related professionals working outside the mid-Atlantic region who are well-recognized for their work pertaining to their particular categories.

Enter>>

CALL for ENTRIES: 2014 Inform Awards

Inform Awards 2014 PosterInform Magazine announces the call for entries to the 23rd annual Inform Awards. The program is intended to recognize and encourage outstanding LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE, INTERIOR DESIGN, and OBJECT DESIGN. Award winners in both the Honor and Merit categories will be featured in a special section of Inform magazine and announced to the public.

The Inform Awards are open to anyone in Inform magazine’s primary circulation area—architects, interior designers, landscape architects, furniture designers, industrial designers, students, and faculty. Your business address must be located in Virginia, Maryland, West Virginia, the District of Columbia, or North Carolina. All work submitted must have been completed after January 1, 2008.

Read the fine print or enter online. After entering, you can upload your project submittal here.

2014 SCHEDULE

March 21, 2014: Registration closes

March 28, 2014: Project submissions must be received by 4 p.m.

April 18, 2014: Winners will be announced by Inform Magazine and readinform.com

May 16, 2014: Winners appear in a special section of Inform Magazine.

2014 FEES

Virginia Society AIA Member Rate: $140 per project

*All Others: $185 per project

*Interested in qualifying for the member rate? Contact Shanelle Calvin or call (804) 237-1772 or see our membership page for details.

Mutations on View at the Virginia Center for Architecture

Saul Bass's Vertigo poster
By combining photography, typography and hand-made graphics into expressive pictographs, Saul Bass brought additional power to the work of directors like Alfred Hitchcock and Otto Preminger.

Design, like DNA, describes who we are and how we evolved. Technological evolution presents designers with means and methods to express ideas that continually build upon a collective heredity. Evolution, however, is not contingent solely on nature. Often misstated as “survival of the fittest,” evolution depends on the genetic mutations that best provide an individual or system the ability to adapt to and thrive in its environment. Accordingly, great design evolves not out of the desire to generically appeal for universal acceptance, but from an astute reading of and capitalization on the passions, needs and aspirations of an era. As opposed to timelessness, design speaks to a moment. If design lingers in our collective awareness, it is precisely because it captures the spirit of the best ideas, practices and expressions of its time. This cultural, philosophical, geographic and intellectual nurturing of design is as important, therefore, as its elemental composition.

Louis Kahn's Salk Institute
Louis Kahn’s Salk Institute spans the dogma of early modernism and the ambiguity of late-twentieth century design. Photo by Llewellyn Hensley.

The Virginia Center for Architecture announces a new exhibition chronicling the intersections between fashion, graphic design, interior design and architecture throughout the last century. MUTATIONS: The DNA of Twentieth Century Design features the work of 28 iconic designers and demonstrates the physical and metaphysical intersections that bind design. The exhibition opens with a Reception on July 25 from 5:30–7:30 p.m. and features light refreshments. There is no charge to attend, but space is limited and reservations are recommended. Call (804) 644-3041, ext. 100, register online at www.architectureva.org or email info@aiava.org to make reservations.  The exhibition will be on view through Oct. 13, 2013.

The exhibition was curated by Roberto L. Ventura with students from Virginia Commonwealth University’s Departments of Graphic, Fashion and Interior Design. Most of the students came to the project through their participation in the Middle of Broad interdisciplinary studio and each played large roles in the generation of the design brand, exhibit design, and content. The design team included Liz Belte, Sarah Brown, Ying Jun Cheng, Laura Colagrande, Llewellyn Hensley and Mia Zhou.

About the Guest Curator

Roberto L. Ventura has practiced and taught modern and sustainable design in Virginia and North Carolina for 15 years. A member of a number of local teams earning design awards from AIA Richmond and the James River Green Building Council, his work has also been exhibited nationally through the HOME house Project sponsored by the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art. For the international light art exhibit InLight Richmond 2009, he collaborated with poet Joshua Poteat on the installation “for gabriel,” winning Best in Show.

While maintaining his practice, roberto ventura design studio, Ventura is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Interior Design in the School of the Arts at Virginia Commonwealth University. He has also taught Interior Architecture at the University of North Carolina – Greensboro, and has lectured at the University of Oulu, in Oulu, Finland. Ventura holds a Master’s in Architecture from Miami University and a B.A. in Math and Physics from Albion College. He earned his LEED AP accreditation in 2008 and his NCIDQ certification in 2012.

About the Virginia Center for Architecture
The Virginia Center for Architecture is located at 2501 Monument Avenue in Richmond, Virginia’s historic Fan District. The Center is dedicated to developing the understanding of the power and importance of architecture and design through programs, exhibitions, and its stewardship of an historic landmark. The Center is open to the public Tuesday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; and Saturday and Sunday from 1 to 5 p.m. Learn more at www.architectureva.org

Inform Awards Deadline March 22

The deadline to submit a project for the Inform Awards has been extended to  March 22, 2013. The program recognizes and encourages outstanding landscape architecture, interior design, and object design. The awards are open to anyone in Inform magazine’s primary circulation area—architects, interior designers, landscape architects, furniture designers, industrial designers, students, and faculty. Your business address must be located in Virginia, Maryland, West Virginia, the District of Columbia, or North Carolina. All work submitted must have been completed after January 1, 2008.

Award winners in both the Honor and Merit categories will be featured in a special section of Inform magazine and announced to the public.

Find out more or enter>>

Registration Open for 21st Annual Inform Awards

As the markets begin to thaw, now is the time to position your award-winning talents before the eyes of your clients, potential clients, colleagues, and public through the 2012 Inform Awards, which recognize outstanding work in landscape architecture, interior design, and object design. The program is open to anyone in the Inform magazine primary circulation area, including architects, interior designers, landscape architects, furniture designers, industrial designers, students, and faculty.

Entrants must have a business address in Virginia, Maryland, West Virginia, the District of Columbia, or North Carolina, and submitted work must have been completed after January 1, 2007. And for members of the Virginia Society AIA, there is a special entry-fee discount.

Award winners in both the Honor and Merit categories will be featured in a special section of Inform magazine and announced to the public. The registration deadline is March 9, 2012, and you can enter online or via email, fax, or mail using the PDF registration form.

The Inform Awards fee structure for 2012 is $135 per project for members of the Virginia Society AIA, and $175 per project for entrants who are not members of the Virginia Society AIA. Note that the fees are due upon registration, non-refundable, and non-transferable.

As a clarification, the Object Design category covers furniture, appliances, fixtures, and building components and systems, as opposed to full-building design. For more details, click on one of the registration links above.