Exhibition Opening

Wednesday, June 5, 2013, 6 – 7:30 pm

"Concepts" presents award-winning projects from the 2013 Washington UNBUILT Awards, an annual competition conducted by AIA|DC since 2009 which recognizes excellence in both theoretical projects and unbuilt commissioned projects. The program is open to registered architects, landscape architects, planners, interior designers, associate architects and students in the Washington metropolitan area.

The awards program is divided into two categories: theoretical projects refer to exploratory work without a client such as design competitions, hypothetical or research-oriented assignments, and student work; unbuilt commissioned projects refer to unexecuted work or work that not yet constructed in various project types including buildings, interiors, monuments and memorials, planning, public art, public space, transportation infrastructure, and urban design.

The 2013 Washington UNBUILT Awards winners:

Awards of Excellence:

• Andrew Baldwin, Lacrosse as Sacred Iroquois Tradition: The Architecture of Cultural Representation

• Edward R. Ford, Park and Recreation Structures Revised

• Ghazal Abbasy-Asbagh, Refolding Muqarnas: A Case Study

• KGD Architecture, Civic Threshold

Awards of Merit:

• c2 architecture studio + HOK, infoCUBE: light monitors

• Cunningham | Quill Architects, St. Elizabeths Water Tower

• Edward R. Ford, Trinity + One

• Jacob Bialek, Modular Personality: Vertical Integrated Student Housing

• KGD Architecture, Office Building of the Future

• LEO A DALY, China Mobile

• McGraw Bagnoli Architects, Green Machine

• Philip Goolkasian, South Capitol Natatorium

Credits

Orgranized by AIA|DC for the SIGAL Gallery and generously supported by ABC Imaging. Produced in part with generous assistance from the award winners.

Opening Reception

September 10, 2014, 6 - 7:30 PM

In 2004, under the administration of then mayor Anthony Williams, members of the District of Columbia Public Library board toured the country to explore library systems and research current trends in innovative library design. The goal: to gather information and form ideas for the improvement of DC’s aging centers for learning. Ten years later, under the skilled management of Library Director Ginnie Cooper, the DC Public Library system has exceeded these expectations to become a visionary example in both form and function of what a 21st century library can be.

The exhibition provided a glimpse of the DC Public Library system’s revitalization established by the Library Building Program. It explored how it is invigorating communities, how it is molding the city as a center for civic architecture, and how it is fashioning a new age of public service.

Featured in the SIGAL Gallery were twelve of the seventeen neighborhood libraries completed or underway since the Library Building Program began, a retrospective view of the system’s Carnegie Library, and a prospective outlook of the city’s central library – Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library.

Credits

Organized by AIA|DC for the SIGAL Gallery and generously supported by ABC Imaging.

Chapter Design Awards Celebration & Exhibition Opening

Monday, December 16, 2013, 6 – 8 pm

More than 200 projects were submitted this year to the annual AIA|DC Chapter Design Awards Competition. Of those submissions, 38 projects were selected as winners by a jury of practitioners from around the country who knew nothing prior of the projects or their designers. The use of a blind competition levels the playing field for all and this year’s winners provide a clear indication of where the profession is headed.

The exhibition features designs recognized for excellence or merit in architecture, interior architecture, and historic resources categories with a special citation and folly award for two very unique projects. Presidential citations were also given to projects in sustainable design, universal design, and urban design classifications. The exhibition is arranged in connection with the winter edition of ArchitectureDC magazine where the projects are published. Additional project information will also be available at architecturedc.net, including plans, sections, elevations, and renderings.

For a full list of this year's winners, please click here.

Credits

Organized by AIA|DC for the SIGAL Gallery and generously supported by ABC Imaging.

SIGAL Gallery

Opening Reception

Monday, September 29, 6 – 7:30 PM

The District Architecture Center is pleased to present "The 11th Street Bridge Park: A New Civic Space," an exhibition of visionary designs from the 11th Street Bridge Park design competition, a contest recently held to envision DC's first elevated public park over the Anacostia River.

In a public-private collaboration between the District of Columbia government and the Ward 8-based non-profit known as “Building Bridges Across the River,” funds were raised for the nationwide design competition. The competition challenged design teams – comprised of architects, landscape architects, engineers, design specialists, consultants, and advisors – to re-use existing piers from one of the old bridges to create a new civic space that would support the community’s environmental, physical, cultural and economic health.

Of the more than 80 entries, four design teams were selected to envision the new civic space for the competition’s ‘Stage III’ phase:

• Balmori Associates / Cooper, Robertson & Partners

• OLIN / OMA

• Stoss Landscape Urbanism / Höweler + Yoon Architecture

• Wallace Roberts & Todd (WRT) / NEXT Architects / Magnusson Klemencic Associates

Explore each team’s community-inspired design proposal presented with imaginative renderings and detailed drawings. Discover ideas for new activities in the park connecting Anacostia and Capitol Hill: café and restaurant, environmental education center, kayak and canoe launches, performance space, and play space.

Consider that park visitors might also be able to explore the region’s history through interpretive public art displays, attend outdoor festivals, and buy produce from nearby farmers markets. The possibilities are widespread, but also driven by community input from over 300 meetings to date.

The competition was judged by a group of distinguished experts in the fields of architecture, landscape architecture, urban design, public health, and community engagement:

• Howard Frumkin, M.D., Dr.P.H. Dean, School of Public Health, University of Washington

• Toni L. Griffin, Founding Director of the J. Max Bond Center for the Just City, Spitzer School of Architecture, City College of New York

• Carol Mayer-Reed, FASLA, Partner in Charge of Landscape Architecture and Urban Design, Mayer/Reed

• Michaele Pride, AIA, NOMA, Associate Dean for Public Outreach and Engagement, School of Architecture and Planning, University of New Mexico

• Harry Robinson III, FAIA, AICP, NOMA, Dean Emeritus and Professor of Urban Design, School of Architecture and Design, Howard University

• Patricia Zingsheim, AIA, CPM, Associate Director of Revitalization and Design, D.C. Office of Planning (Alternate Juror)

• Donald J. Stastny FAIA, FAICP, FCIP, Design Competition Advisor

A complete exhibition is presented at the District Architecture Center with abbreviated exhibitions at the Smithsonian Anacostia Community Museum and the THEARC.

Discover more about this project at: http://www.bridgepark.org/.

Credits

Organized by Building Bridges Across the River at THEARC in cooperation with AIA|DC for the SIGAL Gallery.

Generous support provided by Corporate Office Properties Trust, District of Columbia Office of Planning, Goulston & Storrs, Horning Family Foundation, LISC, Prince Charitable Trusts, and The Educational Foundation of America.

Additional support generously provided by ABC Imaging.

Sorg Gallery

The District Architecture Center is pleased to present Suman Sorg: Paintings, an exhibition of selected paintings by Suman Sorg, FAIA, founder and principal designer for Sorg Architects. Located in Washington, DC and New Delhi, India, Sorg Architects is an award-winning international design firm with an extensive portfolio of civic, commercial, educational, institutional, and multi-family residential projects.

In her professional work as an architect, Ms. Sorg has developed a philosophy of design characterized by a strong commitment to thoughtful modern architecture that explores the spatial, material, and visual experience of place. In so doing, she carefully examines the unique characteristics of site, climate, culture, and community, along with programmatic requirements from the client, and looks to this intersection as the catalyst for her architectural concepts.

Like many architects, Sorg complements her professional work with personal work that is both challenging and creative. Painting is just one medium that satisfies this outlet.

The subject of Ms. Sorg’s personal work in painting remains fixed on architecture, but not in the most obvious way. Rather, it looks beyond buildings to touch upon the architectonic aspects of abstraction, color, geometry, and the human body. For inspiration, Sorg is often drawn to the memory of textures and fabrics from Northern India where she grew up.

This show serves as the inaugural exhibition for the District Architecture Center’s Sorg Gallery, a new gallery named for Suman Sorg, FAIA and Sorg Architects.

About Suman Sorg, FAIA:

Suman Sorg’s professional work has been recognized with numerous honors, including 28 awards from the American Institute of Architects (AIA). She has lectured extensively for the AIA, the National Building Museum, the Urban Land Institute, the Center for Architecture in New York, the U.S. Department of State, and the National Trust for Historic Preservation. Ms. Sorg is a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects, serves on the Board of Trustees for the National Building Museum, and is a Peer Reviewer for the U.S. General Services Administration Design Excellence Program.

Ms. Sorg began her studies at the School of Planning and Architecture in New Delhi, India, and completed her Bachelor of Architecture at Howard University in Washington, DC. She later studied Design and Historic Preservation at Cornell University in Ithaca, NY.

Credits

Organized by AIA|DC for the Sorg Gallery in cooperation with Suman Sorg, FAIA and generously supported by ABC Imaging.

Lighting support made possible by Atmosphere, Inc.

SIGAL Gallery & Sorg Gallery

 

Opening Reception

Wednesday, October 29, 6 - 7:30 PM

In 1984, The Washington Post began publishing a weekly column in the Saturday Real Estate Section called “Shaping the City.” Written and illustrated by Roger K. Lewis, FAIA, the column addresses a broad range of topics and issues relevant to the built environment, among them architecture, historic preservation, housing, smart growth, sustainability, transportation, and urbanism.

Lewis’ column is the only one of its kind in the United States, focusing on big-picture stories that affect the form of cities and surrounding regions. On occasion, it highlights controversial and sometimes arcane issues, including federal, state, and local public policies.

The column reaches a broad audience of real estate and building industry professionals throughout DC, Maryland, and Virginia, among them developers, realtors, architects and engineers, attorneys, construction industry workers, and bankers and investors. Of equal importance, it also reaches federal, state and local government officials who set policy and regulate development.

Lewis and his “Shaping the City” column have won numerous awards throughout the years.

Since 2007, Lewis served as a regular guest discussing “Shaping the City” issues on The Kojo Nnamdi Show, broadcast by American University Radio WAMU 88.5.

This exhibition presents more than 80 cartoons illustrated by Mr. Lewis over 30 years. The humorous, yet informative and insightful cartoons, which serve as the column’s visual marquee, will make you laugh, think, and question the world around you. Explore his work and discover some of the humorous, controversial, and sometimes arcane issues that help shape the city!

About Roger K. Lewis, FAIA

Roger K. Lewis, FAIA is a practicing architect and urban designer, professor emeritus of architecture at the University of Maryland, author, and journalist.

In 1964, Mr. Lewis received a Bachelor of Architecture from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology before joining the Peace Corps where he served for two years as a volunteer architect in Tunisia. Thereafter, he returned to MIT where he received a Master of Architecture. From 1968 – 2006, Lewis taught architectural design at the University of Maryland’s School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation, which he helped to establish. Lewis began his architecture and planning office in 1969, a practice that received numerous awards for a wide range of projects, including planned communities, affordable housing complexes, private homes, public schools, recreational facilities, and civic art centers.

In 1998, the U.S. General Services Administration appointed Lewis to its Design Excellence National Peer Committee, which reviews the design of federal projects throughout the country. Today, he periodically serves as a GSA design consultant.  For more than 20 years, Lewis has also been a member of the government-appointed Design Review Board for "Carlyle" and "Eisenhower East," two redevelopment areas of Alexandria, Virginia.

Mr. Lewis has served as Professional Advisor organizing and guiding a number of significant and successful national and international design competitions that culminated in built projects.  Examples include the University of Maryland College Park performing arts center; the Catholic University of America law school; the Silver Spring, Maryland, civic building and plaza; the State of Maryland World War II Memorial; the University of Baltimore law school; and the District Architecture Center.

Professor Lewis is the author or co-author of numerous professional journal articles and books, among them “Shaping the City,” published in 1987 by The AIA Press; The Growth Management Handbook; and the 2013 third edition of Architect? A Candid Guide to the Profession, first published by The MIT Press in 1985.

Lewis is currently president and chair of the Peace Corps Commemorative Foundation where he is leading the effort to create a modestly scaled commemorative work in the nation's capital that will honor the historically significant of the 1961 founding of the Peace Corps.  In November 2013, the Washington Architectural Foundation presented Professor Lewis its eighth annual John "Wieb" Wiebenson Award for Architecture in the Public Interest, recognizing Professor Lewis as "A Champion of Design for the Greater Good."

Credits

Organized by AIA|DC for the SIGAL Gallery and Sorg Gallery in cooperation with Roger K. Lewis, FAIA and generously supported by ABC Imaging.

SIGAL Gallery

 

Opening Reception & Awards Ceremony
Tuesday, December 16, 2014, 6 – 8 pm

The District Architecture Center proudly presents Showstoppers!, an exhibition of award-winning projects from the 2014 AIA|DC Chapter Design Awards. This year, more than 200 projects were submitted to the competition. Of those submissions, 30 projects were selected by a jury of practitioners from around the country and Canada. As in previous years, the jurors knew nothing of the submissions before travelling to Washington. AIA|DC believes a blind competition levels the playing field for those who participate.

The exhibition features designs awarded in architecture, as well as recognitions of excellence or merit for interior architecture, historic resources, and urban design/master planning—a new category. As with previous competitions, honorable mentions and presidential citations were also awarded to commendable projects.

The exhibition coincides with the Winter 2014 edition of ArchitectureDC Magazine where the winning projects are published.

For a full list of this year’s winners, please click here.

Credits

The exhibition is organized by the Washington Chapter of the American Institute of Architects for the SIGAL Gallery and generously supported by ABC Imaging.

SIGAL Gallery

 

Opening Reception
Wednesday, January 14, 6 – 7:30 pm

Using Historic Congressional Cemetery as a theoretical site, students from The Catholic University of America School of Architecture and Planning will present design proposals for a rarely talked-about, yet intriguing topic that inevitably touches us all: architecture of loss, life, and learning.

Each project focuses on the emotional and spiritual dimensions of architecture expressed through color, light, materiality, and texture, characteristics thoughtfully balanced with the economical and functional requirements of this building type. The studio further explains, “The Aedes Mortis confronts death, mourning and loss head-on. The Aedificium Memoriarum presents an interesting challenge for designers to extract the essence of the poetic and the spiritual, to celebrate the figurative and literal weight of the gravestones, to fulfill the expectations and requirements of the conservation labs, and to address its “front yard” of the field of cemetery markers.”

The comprehensive studio, led by Associate Professor Julie Ju-Youn Kim, partnered with leading professionals and their firms to support goals of integration in the studio. The partners include Duncan Lyons, RIBA, Gensler; Anik Jhaveri, AIA, JACOBS; Scott Kilbourn, AIA, Perkins Eastman; Robert Berry, AIA, RTKL; Doug Dahlkemper, AIA, SmithGroupJJR; and Rod Garrett, FAIA, SOM.

This exhibition is organized and made possible by The Catholic University of America School of Architecture and Planning in cooperation with AIA|DC for the SIGAL Gallery with generous support from ABC Imaging.

Sorg Gallery

 

The District Architecture Center is pleased to present "Cover Stories: ArchitectureDC Magazine, 2003 – 2014", an exhibition of engaging cover stories published by the Washington Chapter of the American Institute of Architects (AIA|DC) since 2004.

ArchitectureDC is a magazine for consumers of architecture and design throughout the Washington metropolitan region. AIA|DC created the magazine to promote the work of its members, preview new architecture that impacts the region, and bring attention to new trends in home furnishings. ArchitectureDC was formerly known as AIADC Magazine from 1999 – 2002 and published by Dawson Publications, Inc. through 2003 when the name changed.

The magazine is published quarterly and distributed to over 22,000 subscribers. Readers discover stories about award-winning commercial, institutional, or residential projects, in addition to cutting-edge trends in the architecture industry and new developments affecting small towns and big cities throughout the region.  The magazine received a Gold Circle Award in 2008 from the American Society of Association Executives for excellence in print publishing.

This exhibition unveils many of the covers that brought ArchitectureDC recognition and continued readership throughout its tenure. Covers are arranged by composition and organized by themes: Sites for Moving & Gathering; Environments for Working; Centers for Learning; Spaces for Eating & Entertaining; and Places for Living. Together, the covers show that the Washington market really supports progressive architecture, a fact that is often surprising to outsiders. Copies of past issues will also be displayed, encouraging exhibition-goers to revisit these covers and the stories within.

ArchitectureDC is a free publication. Subscribe online at www.aiadc.com.

The exhibition is organized by AIA|DC for the Sorg Gallery and designed and modeled in ArchiCAD18.  This exhibit, like many others, is generously supported by our longstanding partnership with ABC Imaging.

SIGAL Gallery & Sorg Gallery

Opening Reception
Tuesday, April 28, 6-8pm

The District Architecture Center is pleased to present reVISION::Thinking Big, New Projects in Washington DC, an exhibition focusing on five phased, mixed-use projects currently in design, in the final stages of development review, or under construction: The Yards, The Wharf, Burnham Place at Union Station, Capitol Crossing, and McMillan. Organized around three themes—reconnecting to the water, building above barriers, and repurposing public works—the exhibition examines the theories and context behind each project’s design as well as the complexity inherent in projects of such vision and scope. 

Highways, rail yards, industrial sites, and relics of mid-twentieth century urban renewal have long posed significant physical barriers in Washington, DC. These uses have been inserted into and disrupted the city’s historic street/block pattern conceived by Pierre L’Enfant, severing public access to the Potomac and Anacostia Rivers, and occupying large swaths of its neighborhoods. In the first decades of the twenty-first century, planning efforts coupled with economic resurgence and population growth have generated new opportunities and ideas about how these disconnections can be repaired. The potential for reconnecting the city’s fabric has sparked development interest in—and a new vision for—urban sites overlooked or once considered too difficult and inaccessible.

The five projects are large in scale and express a grand vision for their place in the city—consistent with Washington as a city of grand visions. The first was defined by the L’Enfant Plan of 1791, which laid out a capital of broad diagonal avenues and a grid of streets with a core of civic buildings and a central green. The McMillan Plan of 1901 reinforced the central elements of the L’Enfant Plan and led to the National Mall we know today. A well-intentioned but less successful vision for the city was the urban renewal program of the mid-twentieth century that intended to revitalize the city but sacrificed a Southwest neighborhood.

The projects are ambitious. They envision reconnection; redevelopment of sites characterized by obsolete or inappropriate uses; and transformation of these sites into economically vibrant destinations for living, working, shopping, and recreation. Several of the projects repair the historic fabric of the L’Enfant Plan frayed by earlier development. Others look beyond the historic core.

Above Left: The Yards, Photo by David Galen / Above Right: The Wharf, Courtesy of Perkins Eastman DC

Above Left: Burnham Place at Union Station, Courtesy of Akridge / Shalom Baranes Associates / Above Right: Capitol Crossing, Courtesy of Kevin Roche John Dinkeloo and Associates LLC

Above: McMillan, Courtesy of Perkins Eastman / Interface Multimedia

The exhibition will feature graphic panels illustrated to show historic conditions, existing problems, and future solutions through historic and contemporary photographs, maps, analytical diagrams, architectural drawings, and concept renderings. Architectural scale-models will also show the planned developments, and videos will highlight each neighborhood’s history, as well as precedents and design theories that inspired each project.

Credits

Organized by AIA|DC for the SIGAL Gallery and Sorg Gallery. Production made possible by ABC Imaging. Designed and modeled in ArchiCAD18.

AIA|DC/District Architecture Center: Mary Fitch, AICP, Hon. AIA, Executive Director; Daniel Fox, Assistant Director;

Exhibition Committee: David Haresign, FAIA, Bonstra|Haresign ARCHITECTS, Chairman; Matthew Bell, FAIA, Perkins Eastman; Mark Gilliand, FAIA, Shalom Baranes Associates; Roger K. Lewis, FAIA, Professor Emeritus, University of Maryland; William Powers, AIA, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP; Lee Quill, FAIA, Cunningham+Quill Architects; Rita Abraham Yurow, Sorg Architects

Curator: Mary Konsoulis, AICP, Consulting for Creative Community

Exhibition Designer: Scott Clowney, AIA|DC/District Architecture Center

Graphic Designer: Jennifer Byrne, Live.Create.Play.LLC

Digital Information Coordinator: Bradley W. Johnson, AIA|DC/District Architecture Center

Location Maps by Taylor Stout, Graduate Student in Architecture and Real Estate Development, University of Maryland

History/Analysis PowerPoint Videos by the Graduate Architecture Seminar in Urban Design, University of Maryland, Prof. Matthew Bell, FAIA: Christopher Allen, Lubna Chaudhry, Golnar Ershad, Elizabeth Hampton, Kara Johnston, David Leestma, Luke Petrocelli, Shira Rosenthal, Siobhan Steen, Arica Thornton, Nader Wallerich, Richard Watt

Sponsors

reVISION::Thinking Big is made possible by the generous support of the following sponsors:

AECOM
Akridge
Beyer Blinder Belle
Bonstra | Haresign ARCHITECTS
Cunningham | Quill Architects
Hoffman Madison
Jair Lynch Development Partners
Kevin Roche John Dinkeloo and Associates, LLC
Kohn Pederson Fox
LAB Inc.
Lee & Associates
Michael Vergason Landscape Architects, Ltd.
MV+A Architects
Nelson Bryd Woltz Landscape Architects
Perkins Eastman
Property Group Partners
Shalom Baranes Associates, Architects
Silman
Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP