03 residential architect design awards

Residential Architect, May, 2003 by Meghan Drueding, Cheryl Weber, Nigel F. Maynard, Shelley D. Hutchins, James Schwartz

do you look forward to this issue as much as we do each year? It's a real departure for us from the way we usually assemble our editorial content. Here, we cede control of our feature pages to a representative group of our readers--residential architects expert in their chosen field. We invite them to examine what our entrants consider their best work and to single out the truly exceptional for awards. Great work chosen by great architects makes for a beautiful issue of the magazine, we think. It's also a useful barometer for you and us to use in measuring our standards. Are we tough enough on ourselves? Are we compromising when we shouldn't, stopping at merely good when great might lie just around the corner? We were heartened to see that our judges selected some projects for awards that we've already run in the magazine in recent issues. Maybe we're all on the right track.

This year we received more than 575 entries in 10 categories: custom / 3,500 square feet or less; custom / more than 3,500 square feet; renovation; multifamily; single-family production/detached; single-family production/attached; affordable; kitchen; bath; architectural detail. All were eligible for the best-in-show prize of project of the year. As always, we gave our jury wide latitude to adjust the program. They can eliminate, add, or combine categories and bestow as many awards--or no awards--as they see fit. This year, they decided to subdivide the custom / 3,500-square-feet-or-less category into two classifications: custom/less than 2,000 square feet; and custom/ 2,000 to 3,500 square feet. And they added a judges' award for projects they loved but thought should not remain in the category entered. Thus, we have a total of 12 categories of winners in this competition, plus our project of the year. There are six grand awards, 18 merits, two judges' awards, and project of the year. Not all categories have a grand award winner.

Our distinguished panel of jurors comprised: David Baker, FAIA, David Baker Partners Architects, San Francisco; Harry Teague, AIA, Harry Teague Architects, Aspen, Colo.; Heather McKinney, AIA, McKinney Architects, Austin, Texas; Mark Hutker, AIA, Mark Hutker & Associates Architects, Vineyard Haven, Mass; Rick Emsiek, AIA, McLarand Vasquez Emsiek & Partners, Irvine, Calif.; D. Graham Davidson, FAIA, Hartman-Cox Architects, Washington, D.C.

Turn the pages and judge for yourself.

project of the year

blue ridge farmhouse addition, washington, va.

robert m. gurney, faia

alexandria, va.

when Bob Gurney's clients asked him to design an addition to their 1799 farmhouse in the rolling hills of Washington, Va., his first instinct was to imagine a Modern glass pavilion. "It seemed more respectful than a seamless composition," he says. "I wanted there to be no doubt about what was old and what was new."

An internal reality check followed that initial reaction. The architect's pragmatic side doubted that the couple would accept the notion of annexing such a Modern piece to their beloved old house. Then the husband showed him a book on one of his favorite projects, Philip Johnson's Glass House. "I was apprehensive about proposing something so Modern," Gurney says. "But when the client pulled out the book on the Glass House, I realized they might be into the idea."

They were indeed. And they were very specific about their Portrait by Bill Cramer program. They asked Gurney for a new, expansive living and dining room to accommodate their growing family. Avid horseback riders and gardeners, the couple also needed a first-floor mudroom and bath where they could clean up after a day spent outdoors. And they wanted to add a bit of formality to the home's rear entrance, because most of their guests enter that way.

Gurney divided the addition into three parts. The steel-and-glass pavilion he first envisioned holds the living and dining room. Its roofline echoes that of the main house, and its transparent walls bring in views of the surrounding farmland as well as the distant Blue Ridge Mountains. "The room changes with the seasons and even with the time of day," notes builder Chris Stanton. A tall, narrow, clapboard structure containing the mudroom and bath is the second component, providing a vertical counterpart to balance out the more horizontal pavilion.

Designing the third section of the addition--the hall, stairway, and remodeled kitchen that together serve as the connective tissue between the new and old portions of the house--was the trickiest. Gurney combined elements consistent with the existing house, like heart-pine floors and a paneled pantry door, with more Modern items representing the newer portion: crisp white drywall, large panes of glass, and contemporary light fixtures. In the kitchen, he specified stainless steel appliances and clean-lined cherry cabinetry but left the original windows intact, wavy glass and all.

The stair hall forms an axis that subdivides the living/dining room and the mudroom, and continues outside to Gurney's minimally designed entry path. The path not only supplies the sense of arrival the owners wished for, but also helps link the farmhouse to its nearby outbuildings. "The addition makes you look harder at the older parts of the house," said one judge. "We could talk about this project all day," agreed another. "It is beautiful at every level."--m.d.