Rice earns multiple honors at AIA Houston Design Awards

Rice University raked in the honors at the American Institute of Architects Houston chapter 2012 Design Awards, presented March 22.

BROCKMAN HALL FOR PHYSICS

The Brockman Hall for Physics, designed by Kieran Timberlake with Jackson & Ryan Architects, earned an award in the category of “architecture over 50,000 square feet.” Completed in 2011, Brockman Hall is an 110,000-square-foot facility that includes vibration- and noise-controlled underground laboratories to support work in atomic, molecular and optical physics; biophysics; condensed matter physics; nanoengineering and photonics. The building enables Rice to create a state-of-the-art facility that meets the exacting requirements of modern physics and to consolidate its research in fundamental and applied physics.

THE INHOUSE OUTHOUSE

The Rice Building Workshop and Rice School of Architecture (RSA) graduate students Andrew Daley, Jason Fleming and Peter Muessig won the “On the Boards” category for the InHouse OutHouse. This category is for unrealized or uncompleted work for an active client. The InHouse OutHouse prepackages essential services – a full bathroom, a working kitchen and heating and air conditioning – into a prefabricated unit that can be inserted into an existing house or serve as the central core for new construction. The first prototype will be built this spring and will be placed in a home at Project Row Houses in Houston’s historic Third Ward, the site of several previous Rice-born projects.

VELOCITY

Muessig also won the “conceptual projects” category for veloCity, mapping Houston on the diagonal. This category is for conceptual work, not for an active client.

Several RSA faculty members and an alumna were honored as well. Mark Wamble, a professor in the practice of architecture, and Dawn Finley, an associate professor of architecture, were cited for two residential projects: a Yoga Studio and Garden and the 9˚ House, both in Houston. The team, who are principals of Interloop — Architecture, also won for their “On the Boards” project, the Hempstead Garden Research Center.

Douglas Oliver, a professor in the practice at RSA and a principal at Morris Architects, shared an “On the Boards” award with his team designing an Information Technology and Media Center at Santa Monica College.

RSA alumna Natalye Appel ’82 and her design team at Natalye Appel and Associates, which includes Stuart Smith ’97 and Stephanie Millet ’05,won an award in the “Less than 50,000 Square Feet” category for  Fish Camp.

Mark Malekshani, a former RSA lecturer and mechanical engineering consultant for the school’s 2011 Totalization Studios, won for REPEAT: Minimal Complexity in the “Divine Details” category. He is an associate principal at Buro Happold, New York.

The AIA Houston Design Awards program recognizes design excellence in architecture, residential architecture, interior architecture, restoration/renovation and urban design. Criteria used by the jury include quality of design, resolution of the program idea, sustainable responsibility, innovation, thoughtfulness and technique.