Several architectural firms were among the winners at the American Institute of Architects Peconic Chapter’s annual awards ceremony in East Hampton on Saturday.
The ceremony was named after Daniel J. Rowen, who died in 2009. He was a highly regarded architect who was known for his modernist designs. Kay Jones, the chapter’s executive director, started the awards night with him 11 years ago.
“Each year, we have managed to produce an exciting array of new work on the East End of Long Island,” Ms. Jones said. “And AIA Peconic is extremely proud of this year’s class of winners.”
Awards were bestowed by jurors—all were members of the AIA College of Fellow Architects—for outstanding architecture, historic preservation and adaptive reuse of existing buildings, unbuilt or planned projects, and the work of associates, students and emerging architects licensed for less than 10 years.
“The entrants were asked, ‘How does this project address issues of time and place?’ The jurors selected out of the 35 registered entries representing 13 firms for the projects that best answered that question in the way they saw fit,” Ms. Jones said.
“Asking this question provided the jurors with a lens through which to view the projects during their evaluations and discussions helping to give a focus to the process of choosing the award winners,” said Michele Hugo, the Design Awards Committee chair. “As you can imagine, with such a broad question, there were many interpretations. We had 35 entries and 35 interpretations, plus the four judges with their own perspectives. It turned out to be very interesting.”
A highlight of the ceremony, held at The Ross School on Saturday, was the People’s Choice Award, selected by the chapter’s members. Blaze Makoid Architects in Bridgehampton claimed that prize for the architecture of two-story waterfront home in North Haven. Located on a small saltwater pond, the stone-clad stair tower near the center of the house separates a modern aesthetic of wood and glass. The ground floor includes large doors to allow for the seamless transition from waterside to outdoor and indoor entertaining space.
Stelle Lomont Rouhani Architects in Bridgehampton won a Juror Award for the architecture of an East Hampton home, which also was the reason for the firm’s honor by the Long Island chapter last month. The two-story modern home is well lit with skylights and a “full height glass curtain wall” that overlook gardens walled off by concrete and Gardiners Bay.
The main floor is pavilion-like with entertainment space and doors that disappear into pockets. The second floor includes several bedrooms and private spaces. The home has geothermal heating and cooling, and is connected to rooftop solar.
The Bridgehampton-based architecture firm also took home a Merit Award—honoring a project that exhibits exemplary execution of design principles and presentation—for the unbuilt design of three cottages on top of a bluff. There are a pair of two-story cottages and a single, one-story cottage.
Roger Ferris + Partners in Bridgehampton also received a Juror Award for a teaching facility at The Bridge Golf Club in Noyac. The firm, with offices in Connecticut and New York State, was championed by both state chapters in early 2010s for a clubhouse constructed on the property that was 80 percent glass. The teaching facility took a similar motif, including glass, zinc and steel, with a contemporary design with sharp corners designed to catch the prevailing wind.
Newman Architects garnered a Merit Award for the historic preservation of the John Jermain Memorial Library in Sag Harbor. The restoration project doubled the size of the old Beaux Arts library. The original architecture of the limestone and hard-burnt red brick juxtaposed the newly added glass, stone and stainless steel.
Bates Masi + Architects in East Hampton also won a Merit Award for the architecture on a 3,500-square-foot home in East Hampton. The property owners lived in a modern home built in the 1960s that was damaged by Superstorm Sandy in 2012. To meet new flood zone requirements, the house was elevated. The foundation is recessed to make it look like the house is floating.
Elements of the old home, including the exposed steel frame, were preserved in the new construction. Light pours through skylights cut into the cross laminated timber. Inside, cabinets are made from bamboo plywood to match the rooftop panels.
The Lacuna Project received a Honor Award for its excellence as an emerging architectural firm for a two-story shingled home near Sag Harbor. The project started in Chicago in 2003 as a collaborative of artists, designers and architects. Inside the award-winning home, the floors and furniture in the kitchen, living room and dining room on the main floor have a wooden aesthetic with matte black accents—a chair here, a stool there. It’s open and bright, like a lightbox. A woodburning stove keeps the home warm in the winter, and sliding doors that lead out to the backyard offer a breeze in the summer. Upstairs, pitched roofs make the bedrooms cozy.
Also in Sag Harbor, James Merrell Architects took home an Honor Award for an unbuilt project that the firm is working on in Shelter Island. It appears from renderings that the estate features a main house and a guest house or pool house divided by a gravel center driveway. The two-story main house features two wings and floor-to-ceiling windows.
Leroy Street Studio also garnered an Honor Award, for outstanding architecture on a project on Shelter Island, with two elevated cedar-clad living quarters linked by a roof deck that shelters interior and exterior entertaining spaces below. The Manhattan-based firm won a second Honor Award for a cedar-faced modern home that overlooks Noyac Bay. The home with large walls of glass, a covered outdoor courtyard and bedrooms on the second floor took home an Archi Award last month, too.
John David Rose Architect also won an Honor Award for the firm’s historic preservation of a home built in 1887 in Southampton. The home was built by its original owner, Robert Henderson Robertson, who designed the Rogers Memorial Library and Hall. Its long wrap-around porch and second-floor terraces draw the eye to the turn-of-the-century architecture.
JD Allen on Nov 29, 2018