California College of the Arts Architecture faculty and students kicked off the summer with a host of impressive industry awards, including the college's first-ever Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA) award. This unique honor, including others listed below, accentuates CCA's stated commitment to developing sustainable design practices and supporting environmental consideration.

FIRST PRIZE: Green Community—International Student Design Competition

Architecture faculty and students claimed first prize in the Green Community 2008–2009 International Student Design Competition, a juried competition put on by the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA) and Architectural Record.

CCA was among 75 additional academic institutions representing 15 competing countries. With 1,322 students and approximately 200 faculty entered in the competition, culminating in 260 submitted projects, competition was, needless to say, stiff.

The winning Green Community project, Urban Reef, was submitted by Architecture students Dylan Barlow, Kyle Belcher, and Geoffrey Gregory, along with their studio faculty Mona El Khafif and David Fletcher. The fall 2008 advanced studio, Transformative Land: Envisioning Bay Link Pier 70, received support from Build Inc., a San Francisco development company.

All three students will present the project July 28 in Washington DC at the National Building Museum, the country’s preeminent cultural institution dedicated to the exploration and acknowledgment of successful architecture, design, engineering, construction, and planning.

The first-prize submission reimagines San Francisco’s Pier 70 as a public showplace for green energy and sustainable food production. The prize was announced in June.

ACSA's Green Community competition challenges architecture students to consider environmental sustainability and examine ways to reduce the impact of continued building on the planet through such methods as brown-field/gray-field redevelopment, transit-oriented communities, natural resource management, and land conservation.

Participants were also challenged to develop a proposal to create a flourishing and sustainable community using the tools of the environmental design disciplines: architecture, landscape architecture, and urban planning.

Furthermore, the competition called for architecture students to reimagine a specific area in their towns to consider such issues in contemporary sustainable planning as reuse, remediation, conservation, sanitation, and water management, among other elements.

Judges praised Urban Reef as “... a dramatic analysis, visionary form … and beautifully illustrated. ...” and went on to say the project “… marries a big idea directly related to the topic with an architectural solution. … deals expressly with how to deal with high-rise density.”

Related
"Winners of ACSA Green Community Competition Announced"
National Building Museum

TOP HONORS: Urban Re:Vision Dallas Competition

CCA Architecture faculty member David Fletcher (see Fletcher Studio) and David Baker + Partners Architects (aka DB+P) were awarded one of three first-place prizes for their collaborative XERO Project in the 2009 Urban Re:Vision Dallas competition.

According to the Urban Re:Vision Competitions webpage: “Re:Vision is a revolutionary initiative to create the prototype for an innovative, sustainable urban community. At the heart of the process is a series of contests generating visionary ideas for what can and should be in the design about urban space.”

The XERO Project is an urban-landscape design that comprises four distinct parts, each in relation to the XERO district: block, building, energy, and place. The design offers Dallas-specific design, greenways, visible water and energy systems, and offers an emphasis on agriculture and food.

“By filling in the vast emptiness, making connections with the surrounding neighborhoods, addressing extreme weather and street conditions, and providing a clear focus, XERO creates a place that Dallas can value and use.” (Visit Urban Re:Vision XERO Energy for additional details.)

The goal of the Urban Re:Vision competition is to create plans to transform a residential city block in downtown Dallas into a place that creates economies, supports communities, facilitates relationships, and generates resources. Ultimately the project would shape how future citizens live and work using alternative energy sources within their economy.

According to one judge, “ . . . the XERO Energy plan is a bold, innovative and beautiful approach to a new type of urban infill. … It was the bold and visionary plan for a greenway that pushed this entry over the top.”

Related
Watch the ABC World News with Charlie Gibson video segment on YouTube featuring Re:Vision Dallas as part of its “Downsizing your Dream Home" series.

WINNERS: AIA’s New Practices San Francisco Award

AIA San Francisco (American Institute of Architects San Francisco chapter) awarded its New Practices Award, the 2009 West Coast premiere of AIA New York’s annual portfolio competition and exhibition, to several architectural firms, two of which—Min | Day and Faulders Studio—are spearheaded by CCA Architecture faculty. A third firm, also led by a CCA Architecture faculty member, received honorable mention.

Master of Architecture Program senior lecturer E. B. Min is one of two partners at Min | Day, the other being Jeffrey L. Day, who is an associate professor of Architecture at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Thom Faulders, is an associate professor in the Architecture Program and founder of Faulders Studio. The New Practices Award is “distinguished from others given to new practices is the attention focused on how the winning firms are uniquely shaped to better facilitate the type of projects that they undertake.”

Additionally, Oakland-based architectural firm envelope architecture + design (aka envelope a+d), whose principal and founder is Architecture adjunct faculty member Douglas Burnham, received honorable mention.

According to the AIA San Francisco website: “The New Practice Award is a platform for recognizing and promoting new and emerging architecture firms within San Francisco that have undertaken innovative strategies—both in projects and in practice.”

Winning firms are featured in an exhibition at the Center for Architecture in New York, June 4–September 19, 2009, and at the Center for Architecture + Design Gallery at AIA San Francisco November 1–January 29, 2010.

Congratulations to all CCA Architecture faculty and students, including Architecture Director Ila Berman, who contributed to this impressive and well-deserved collection of industry awards!