AIA EDUCATION DESIGN AWARDS When Canada's Royal Conservatory of Music set about expanding its midtown Toronto campus, a careful balancing act was required. The project combined construction of the new Telus Centre for Performance and Learning with the progressive restoration of historic McMaster Hall. The conservatory also sought to energize a new cultural district for the city in conjunction with major cultural facilities nearby, such as the Royal Ontario Museum and Gardiner Museum. — Published 2011.1116
	BNIM - AIA FIRM OF THE YEAR To become one of the first two buildings to receive full recognition under the Living Building Challenge, the Omega Center for Sustainable Living in Rhinebeck, New York, had to meet a stringent set of criteria, including generating all its energy from renewable resources, and capturing and treating all water used onsite. — Published 2011.0511
	HOUSING AWARDS FROM HUD AND THE AIA Residents of Congo Street in Dallas, Texas, loved their tight-knit community of homeowners and long-term tenants. By 2008, however, the neighborhood's modest, century-old houses had fallen into disrepair. The local firm buildingcommunityWorkshop worked with five homeowners to develop a unique plan for renovating their homes without displacing anyone from the neighborhood during the process — and while also reaching for LEED Platinum. — Published 2010.1208
	PORTLAND AIA AWARDS When the University of Oregon made plans with longtime athletics benefactor Phil Knight, chairman of Nike, to build a new study center for student athletes on the Eugene campus, the stated goal was to create a building of striking beauty that celebrates the landscape. The resulting John E. Jaqua Academic Center for Student Athletes is a gleaming glass cuboid set against a reflecting pool, impressing passersby with its pristine presence while providing abundant outdoor views to the select athletes within. — Published 2010.1110
	AIA MICHIGAN AWARDS 2010 The Richmond Center for Visual Arts in Kalamazoo is striking, with building forms tied to its arts hub functions. Copper cladding, curving in two dimensions, wraps the lobby and front exhibit areas, setting off a large glazed facade section that allows natural light deep into the space. The lightness of the glass and copper, and of zinc that wraps the lecture areas, contrasts with the visual weight of the precast concrete panels cladding the rest of the building. — Published 2010.0811
	NEW SAN FRANCISCO ARCHITECTURE SFMOMA commissioned a new sculpture garden for the top of its parking structure, with provisions to connect to the main San Francisco Museum of Modern Art building — a late-20th-century classic that prefigured the wave of museums constructed following the Guggenheim Bilbao in 1997. Jensen & Macy Architects conceived of the garden, which was completed by successor firm Jensen Architects, as a gallery without a ceiling. — Published 2010.0609
	AIA HOUSING AWARDS 2010 The Safari Drive multifamily residential complex in downtown Scottsdale, Arizona, exemplifies a higher-density, pedestrian-scaled alternative to the exploding sprawl of greater Phoenix. Designed by The Miller Hull Partnership, it succeeds as design in the broadest sense: place-making that intertwines architecture, planning, and landscape. — Published 2010.0512
	2010 BREEAM AWARDS When leaders in Milton Keynes, England, sought a new recreation center in the Central Bletchley district, they had many goals: an iconic presence on the outside, countless fitness and sports facilities on the inside, and a building that could catalyze an overall regeneration of the town. But the overriding goal — one that tied together all these disparate parts — was to make the new Bletchley Leisure Center a state-of-the-art sustainable building. — Published 2010.0414
	NORTH AMERICAN WOOD The Richmond Olympic Oval, the venue for long-track speedskating events in the recent Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics, is capped by a massive roof almost 6.5 acres (2.6 hectares) in size. The LEED Silver-certified building, designed by Cannon Design, features prefabricated pine panels spanning between hollow composite wood-steel arches to form a rhythmically pleated timber ceiling over the ice. — Published 2010.0310
	PUGH + SCARPA AIA FIRM AWARD 2010 It's not easy to pigeonhole Pugh + Scarpa Architects. And that's the way partners Gwynne Pugh, Larry Scarpa, and Angela Brooks like it. The buildings they create are dynamic, many with colorful, angular, patterned facades that exude a sense of whimsical energy. Even at its most eye-catching, the work is also decisively rooted in function and energy efficiency. The firm has also established a substantial portfolio of affordable housing projects. — Published 2010.0127

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