Friday, October 24, 2008

2008 Regional Architecture Awards Announced

The 2008 awards for architectural excellence were presented at the AIA Northwest & Pacific Region Annual Conference held in Honolulu, Hawaii earlier this month. The Northwest & Pacific Region of the AIA is the largest and most diverse of all the AIA regions; it includes Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Alaska, Hawaii, Guam, Hong Kong and Japan.

There were over 50 high quality project submittals; which is an amazing amount considering the criteria. Criterion for the awards mandates that participants must have received an award from another AIA component for this project. As a result of these high standards for entry the Region awards have become a ‘best of the best” competition. The ultimate goal of the awards program is to raise the standards of architectural design excellence by both the architectural community and the public. This year’s winners are a wide-ranging group that not only surpasses the prerequisites but raises the bar for architectural standards.

Participants can win an "Honor Award,” and an “Award of Merit” and each project is judged individually, not in comparison with any other submittal. This year the jurors gave out three Honor Awards and eight Merit awards. While the amount of awards given is at the sole discretion of the jury, this year jurors had a hard time narrowing the choices and commented on how difficult it was to select winners.

The jury for this awards program was also diverse and members range in the architecture field from a Director of Exhibitions at Yale University’s School of Architecture and Co-founder of Architecture for Humanity to a principal at large nationally recognized firm and an independent architect. Jurors also ranged in locals throughout the region including Hawaii, Oregon, and Seattle.

Jurors for the competition were: Peter Q. Bohlin, FAIA, partner of Bohlin Cywinski Jackson; Cameron Sinclair, Executive Director and Co-founder of Architecture for Humanity; Dean Sakamoto, Director of Exhibitions at Yale University’s School of Architecture; John M. Hara, FAIA, independent practice devoted to design that continues to re-define Hawaiian architectural traditions; and Johnpaul Jones, FAIA, founding partner of the Seattle-based Jones and Jones Architects and Landscape Architects.

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