2011 Urban Design and Architecture Awards - People's Choice Award

[thistleclub]

That PDF is very 1994 freeware in its typography.


City Hall also won for its forecourt garden (The Edible Landscape). Considering that winners are drawn from a two-year sample (and one of those years generated headlines with its $1 billion in construction), I find it kind of telling that there were only six projects worth describing as "Excellent," half of them public sector and only five of them buildings.

[Martin2480]

To read the article with all links, and to comment on it, go to raisethehammer.org:
http://raisethehammer.org/article/1504


2011 Urban Design and Architecture Awards

The City created this competition 'to recognize and celebrate excellence in the design of our urban enivronment.' Here are the 2011 winners.


By Martin Hering
Published November 21, 2011

The City of Hamilton just released the Jury Report (PDF, 26 MB) on the 2011 Urban Design and Architecture Awards, which were held for the fourth time this past November 10.

The city created this competition, which takes place every other year, "to recognize and celebrate excellence in the design of our urban environment". This year, there were 36 submissions from owners, architects, and citizens.

The awards jury included four experts: two architects from Toronto (Stasia Bogdan, Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care, and Bruce Cudmore, EDA Collaborative) and two urban planners from the City of Hamilton (Tim McCabe, General Manager, Planning and Economic Development, and Paul Mallard, Director of Planning).

The jury decided to create six categories for the 2011 Urban Design and Architecture Awards: Restoration, Architecture and Sustainability, Architecture, Urban Design, Adaptive Reuse, Landscape Architecture, and Healthy Communities.

It gave out 13 awards in total. In addition, there was a People's Choice Award for the project that received the most online votes.

Below, you will find a summary of the jury's comments on the winners in each category, with links to photos and information (usually from the architects' webpages). For an overview of the names of the owners, architects, and other members of the design team, you can visit the City's webpage.

There is also a very nice map of the locations of all projects, which was created by the Hamilton Spectator.

Restoration
All jury members were highly impressed by the Lister Block, which received an Award of Outstanding Achievement and Excellence in Restoration. They noted that the Lister is also a showcase of urban design, adaptive reuse, and community renewal.

Hamilton City Hall, like the Lister Block a designated heritage property, got an Award of Merit in Restoration since "[t]he many interior features and design details of the building that give the building its architectural identity were protected during the restoration."

Our restored Hambly House received an Award of Honorable Mention from the jury.

Architecture and Sustainability
The jury was very impressed by the CANMET Materials Technology Laboratory and awarded this project the highest honor in the Architecture and Sustainability category. The jury called it a "tour-de-force of passive and active sustainable technologies".

Awards of Merit were given to St. Matthew Catholic Elementary School, which features a green roof and an outdoor classroom, and to the Learning Exchange at Mohawk College, which has a curtain wall of coloured glass that appears at night "as a lit mural of vibrant colours and shapes".

Urban Design
The Award of Excellence in Urban Design went to the Branthaven Beach House, a townhouse development on Beach Boulevard. The jury liked the public promenade which "is an inviting feature visually framed by townhouse blocks and lined by trees, painted pergolas, enhanced paving, and seating".

The jury gave an Award of Merit in Urban Design to Bridgewater Court, a New-Urbanism-style townhouse development by Hamilton City Housing, which it sees as "a successfully planned development where the automobile is not a dominate driver of the design ".

It gave another Award of Merit in Urban Design to the Good Shepherd Women's Services Centre, calling it a "successful urban design strategy that is aware and sensitive of the surrounding context". Even though the Centre is a single building, its facade gives the appearance of several buildings.

Adaptive Reuse
The jury recognized the West Avenue Residences, a 19th-century school building that was converted to affordable housing units, with an Award of Excellence in Adaptive Reuse. Even an unpleasant gymnasium addition from the 1950s was successfully incorporated into this project.

An Award of Merit in Adaptive Reuse went to St. Thomas Lofts, a red-brick church that was divided into affordable apartments.

Landscape Architecture
The jury regarded the Edible Landscape in the forecourt of City Hall as a "creative approach to landscape architecture in raising awareness about our food" and recognized it with an Award of Excellence in Landscape Architecture.

Healthy Communities
The new MacNab Transit Terminal received an Award of Merit in Healthy Communities because it provides "a well functioning and a visually pleasing high quality environment" for public transit users.

Architecture
The C Hotel By Carmen's received an Award of Merit in Architecture from the jury which noted its "variation in the form and exterior materials of the building".

People's Choice Award
The People's Choice Award, which was given to the project that received the largest number of online votes, went to the Multi-Tenant Office Building in the Ancaster Business Park.

Martin Hering is a political scientist and preservationist who is interested in architecture and Hamilton's heritage buildings.

[Martin2480]

Catherine Nasmith - a Toronto architect, heritage advocate, and editor of Built Heritage News - wrote an interesting comment on the 2011 Urban Design Awards:

Editor's Note by Catherine Nasmith, Built Heritage News, November 21, 2011

It is a wonderful thing to see the Lister Block restored and praised so highly, but as people take bows, it is important to remember how close we came to losing this building. The fight to save it was bitter. It was only the very highly vocal Hamilton heritage advocates, joined by the provincial ACO and finally by then Minister of Culture, Caroline di Cocco who made the difference. The voices to save it on Hamilton City Council were in the minority, and took quite a beating for their stance. What a difference an activist Minister with money in hand can make. This renewal is triggering all kinds of positive things in its neighbourhood.