2012 Tucker Design Awards: Dynamic Dozen
The Center for the Advancement of Public Action
Bennington College, Bennington, Vt.
Click photo to enlargeDesigner: Tod Williams, Billie Tsien Architects, New York
Stone Installer: Champlain Masonry, Pittsfield, Mass.
Stone Suppliers: Gawet Marble & Granite Inc., Center Rutland, Vt.; Trowel Trades Supply Inc., Colchester, Vt.; Walker Zanger, New York
The center is composed of three buildings – the symposium building, residences for fellows and visitors, and a multi-use space known as the lens. The buildings are sited to form a central courtyard, creating a sense of collaboration and connectedness, which is reiterated by the exterior walkways between the buildings that link to existing campus circulation.
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All three buildings are composed of steel with block infill and clad in a variety of 3”-thick Vermont marble panels. The blocks were found in an abandoned quarry in Rutland only 50 miles from Bennington. Each marble elevation was laid out on the floor of a warehouse prior to installation to insure that the varied colors and sizes were distributed in a desirable pattern. Several full block faces with tool handling markings were used as part of the pattern.
Interior floors and exterior terraces/walkways are paved with Olympic Black granite from Lake Champlain; the effect helps to eliminate the boundary between indoors and outdoors, with the lobby table, residence terrace bench, and courtyard water feature also in black granite. The natural
Juror Comments:
• Beautiful use of stone in a simple, contemporary way. Nice detailing, scale and proportion.
• Beautiful restraint and elegant approach of stone which remembers clarity and richness of Barcelona pavilion. Well-crafted and technologically brilliant.
• Reclaimed Vermont marble cladding and granite paved outdoor and indoor floor surfaces distinguish the low, angular forms of this elegant institutional building, giving it both a density and a local geological relationship. The well-detailed marriage between the stone construction and a “green- design” building agenda is noteworthy.
Citygarden
St. Louis
Click photo to enlargeDesigner: Nelson Byrd Woltz Landscape Architects, Charlottesville, Va.
Stone Installer: Kirkwood Masonry, Kirkwood, Mo.; Leonard Masonry, St. Louis
Stone Suppliers: Cold Spring Granite Company, Cold Spring, Minn.; Earthworks Inc., Perryville, Mo.
The two-square block space had been underused for decades while the surrounding area had undergone significant revitalization efforts including two new stadiums and many new condominium developments. Citygarden is structured as three precincts delineated by two walls. The northern precinct represents the high upland river bluffs. The middle band represents the low ground or floodplain. The southern band represents the cultivated river terraces.
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The first wall is granite-capped and snakes through the park’s southern portion, and offers seating. The arcing second wall is 550’ long and made of native Missouri limestone. Pennsylvania bluestone paving creates the central walk and the paved field for 102 choreographed vertical water jets and lights in a massive ‘spray plaza.’
The selection of granite, limestone and bluestone provide durability to withstand harsh environmental elements and heavy use, and also create a dramatic and aesthetically pleasing visual effect. The use of a limestone native to the area was appealing both in terms of sustainability and linking the garden to its regional geology. The multiple granite colors chosen complement the glass pavilion café in the northeast quadrant of the garden; the project used 36,000 ft² of granite in paved areas.
Juror Comments:
• A beautiful public space use of stone. The design creates an elegant open space with a sense of place that seems to give relieve from the structured elements within the inner city by using strong visual stone elements and pleasing stone forms in the landscape.
• Although unclear to the jury how the scope was separated between two submissions, in both cases – the serpentine bench; stone walls; stone fountains; and general area of paving – make this urban park. They provide the perfect backdrop to the setting which does not overwhelm or compete with the intended use of the garden – the display of works of sculpture.
• By now a recognized and valued element in the re-vitalized St. Louis downtown, this urban landscape draws strength from its designed geological narrative of the region. Constructions of St. Genevieve limestone, granite and bluestone are intelligently and sensitively choreographed with full-grown trees, plantings, and floral beds, water features and public art to create an energetic dance of public space.
