2023 AIA Tennessee Design Awards

Award of Excellence
New Construction
Sycamore House
HASTINGS Architecture

Private resident photos are not approved for public viewing at this time.

The jurors were all taken with this residential project’s captivating interior and exterior courtyard spaces. The fact that this is a family home that is reinforced by simple and elegant layering of spaces makes this project an exemplar for residential design. The project delivers on detail at the most excellent level, with attention to alignment and axial relationships of fenestration, lighting and other fixtures. The choice of materials and the recognition of local vernacular make for a stunning permanence to the home’s exterior. The jury commended the project for utilizing AIA’s COTE Top Ten Measures to guide excellence in sustainable design.

Award of Excellence
New Construction
Scheidt Family Performing Arts Center
archimania | Fleming Architects

The jury noticed design decisions that focused on campus connectivity, and interior and exterior spaces that foster learning, engagement, and social interaction. The project demonstrates design leadership in higher education design and the design of arts center spaces in general. The jury noted that the building envelope and primary volumes are simple and provide a contextual composition that provides human scale. Excellent urban gesture in creation of a linear court that fosters greater connectivity along a campus spine and integrates a front porch that will be valuable for the performing arts center for generations to come. The building’s interior spaces are simple with skillful implementation through detailing and a crisp material palette. This project is ambitious in the scale of higher educational design principles and represents exemplary efforts with respect to the AIA Framework for Design Excellence.

Award of Excellence
New Construction
UTIA Teaching and Learning Center
Sanders Pace Architecture

The jury appreciated this entertainment office project which showcases the performance side of the industry with elegance. The jury noted the attention to details that sculpt light into the inner spaces that would otherwise be windowless box performance space. Elegant design and millwork components, with a beautiful contrasting palette of warm colors, textures, and patterns provide layer and human scale. The jury also appreciated the use of lighting to highlight the layering and contrasting of dark and light.

Award of Merit
Interior Design
Warner Music Nashville & Warner Chappell Music
HASTINGS Architecture

The jury noted this project’s clear and legible parti, utilizing the main concourse as an interior street and connective band filling the gap between existing and new. The project demonstrates design leadership in several ways that all demonstrate the AIA’s Framework for Design Excellence design. The presentation photos and diagrams were of high quality and helped the jury understand the project in its totality. The elevations of this project were skillfully composed. An excellent “front door” approach to Joe Johnson Drive enhances the urban edge and is reinforced through the arrangement and selection of exterior materials to enhance the street edge. Interiors are simple with thoughtful use of natural light and warm materials. This project demonstrates excellence in many ways that could all be exemplary of modern university facility design.

Award of Merit
Restoration and Renovation
HCA Florida West Tampa Hospital – Hospital for Endocrine Surgery
Gresham Smith

Jurors believed this project was a wonderful example of Hospital and Healthcare renovation and modernization of an existing facility from a different era of healthcare. The jury was pleasantly surprised at the dramatic transformation of both public and clinical space that clearly solved an intricate level systems integration design. The new entry provides a dramatic and sunlit welcome to the bright and cheerful interior spaces. This project impressed the jury in many ways by providing new life to a facility that is clearly focused on patient care and comfort.

Award of Merit
Interior Design
UTA Nashville
HASTINGS Architecture

The jury noted the careful layering and arrangement of spaces that gracefully infill and respond to the existing building shell. The adaptive reuse is an exemplary example of carrying forward the clean post modern lines and with attention to detail. The jury was fond of the millwork detailing and the threshold treatment at the conference room.

Award of Merit
New Construction
Ed Rice Community Center
archimania

This project stood out for its creativity and clear dedication to a community forward approach to design. The plan arrangement was noted by the jury as a wonderful solution to connect multiple functions to the community and the neighboring Frayser Park. The arrangement of spaces along a linear “front porch allows for the building to extend east and west to the adjacent greenspace while holding a street edge. The building elevations were well composed and coordinated with interior spaces. The jury noted that this project provides hope for more high performing buildings having achieved the first LEED Silver building constructed by the City of Memphis.

Award of Merit
New Construction
Thrive at City Heights
EOA Architects

The jury commended this project as a strong example of multi-family housing in Tennessee. The project exemplifies some very notable and creative solutions to a very challenging project type. The jury noted the significant grade changes along the site and appreciated the design team’s approach to addressing the elevation change. The site constraints and massing were well managed. The jury appreciated the material palette and believed this will age well. This exemplifies multi-family projects that provide density while delicately layering spaces along the street edge are desperately needed in cities throughout the state.

Award of Merit
New Construction
Harper Auto Wash
BarberMcMurry Architects

This project stood out for elevating the design of a project type that is normally relegated to getting very little creativity. The jury appreciated the use of warm materials in the retail center to contrast the industrial aesthetic that comes with the automotive uses. The design team did a very good job of maintaining a simple parti, and driving home (forgive the pun) the solution through the careful use of natural light, materiality and scale. The primary components of innovative design are well represented in the layering of experiential space found in essence of the project’s function – clean.

Award of Merit
Restoration and Renovation
Hilltop Branch Library
Gresham Smith

Jurors found this project is an exemplar of renovation and restoration of a dramatic scale. The design for this renovation dramatically transformed the existing structure from a closed colonial style structure to an open, welcoming, and modern street frontage. Libraries reflect community pride and commitment to education and this renovation shows commitment to the quality and care needed in public architecture. The jury commends the design team for the use of light monitors and the use of color to add vibrancy to the interior spaces. This is clearly a space that will provide joy for young people that will utilize the space as a gathering space and a space for learning. The jury noted the successful design of the exterior facade to create a pleasing street frontage inside this neighborhood.

Award of Merit
New Construction
Cummins Falls State Park Visitor Center
Tinker Ma

The jurors recognized this project’s simultaneous restraint and reaching for material expression to properly accommodate visitors from different paths and varying topography. The original design intent and diagram parti was very clear, yet the jury appreciates the details that balance nobility and durability which ensure a long life for the public structures. The jury did not miss the nod to historic Tennessee vernacular structures that are prominent in rural parts of the state. The project beautifully demonstrates the AIA Merit for a well-designed and crafted public building.

Award of Merit
New Construction
The Grove at GPAC
archimania

The jury noticed two projects that are performing arts center programs. This project is a small addition to a center that will provide a big impact for the Germantown community. The grove is a skillfully arranged set of smaller program activities and amenities around a community gathering space that acts as the heart of the site. The jury commends this project for contributing to a city of green through saving existing urban tree canopy while striving for a goal of walkability, connectivity and community gathering. The design shows merit in the careful detailing and exterior cladding of the pavilion structures and built program beneath them that accommodate food and beverage. The arrangement of these spaces showcases a commendable level of care for human scale and community gathering.

Award of Merit
New Construction
Kaiser Permanente North Baltimore Hub
Gresham Smith

Jurors found this project providing elegant solutions to multiple goals on a challenging site. The project demonstrates very clear aspirations and study related to solar heat gain and high performing building elements. The jury commends this project for striving to foster community connectivity and took note of the intentional effort to partner with local artists to create well refined exterior experiences for the visitors, employees and the adjacent Timonium neighborhood. The “Thrive Walk” and sustainable garden approach is often missing from the design of healthcare design and refreshing to see in this project. The commitment to sustainability through Healing Environments is clear and to be commended in this project.

Award of Merit
New Construction
Russell Residence
archimania

The jurors noted this project’s successful plan layout and the simple arrangement of two intersecting linear bars of spaces as an elegant solution to maximize connections to a beautiful setting. The home has magnificent interiors due to the skillful placement of skylights and floor to ceiling windows. The exterior materials palette is simple and reserved, reinforcing a clean and elegant composition. The exterior detailing and attention to material changes caught the jury’s attention as the primary component of design excellence above the other residential submissions.