2012 Tucker Design Awards: Dynamic Dozen

Jefferson Scholars Foundation, University of Virginia
Charlottesville, Va.

Click photo to enlargeDesigner: VMDO Architects, Charlottesville, Va.
Landscape Architect: Siteworks, Charlottesville, Va.
Stone Installers: Toru Oba, Charlottesville, Va.; Icon Custom Masonry, Pineville, N.C.
Stone Suppliers: Charles Luck Stone Center, Charlottesville, Va.; Buckingham Slate, Arvonia, Va.; Alberene Soapstone Co., Schuyler, Va.

The new LEED®-Gold-certified center includes a central courtyard and garden center, with three wings carefully situated around this central green for easy movement between inside and outside, and between building and site, in the tradition of the university’s best buildings and landscapes.Click photo to enlarge

Interior spaces are connected through an encircling stone terrace, which is connected to the central tent lawn and woodland garden via a system of stone seat walls, stone stairs and stepping stones. The courtyard and building complex is set within a native Piedmont forest garden and is framed by stone terraces, walls and steps. The site also integrates stormwater management through porous paving, bioretention gardens and cisterns that harvest rainwater for irrigation.

Locally quarried and fabricated Buckingham Black slate roofing shingles are used as vertical siding, a modern interior wall cladding and a durable interior floor paving. Another local stone, Alberene soapstone, was custom-fabricated as a series of sculptural columns supporting the exterior canopy.

Pennsylvania Bluestone is used in several exterior and interior capacities. This material creates the floor of the exterior terrace, uniting the three buildings and the spaces of the site; it’s also used in a custom, thin-stacked application as a veneer for site walls, stair risers and as the base coursing of the buildings .This same detail is transported in side as the detail for a fireplace in the main gathering hall.

Juror Comments:

• Good use of stone as thread of continuity and accent on the building and in the landscape.

• Although stone is used as a counter point to primarily brick and masonry buildings, it exemplifies itself in places where one becomes intimate in both and landscape. Detailing is sophisticated and brings application of stone into the 21st century.

• A contemporary updating of the Jeffersonian architecture of UVA’s famous Lawn, this design employs well-laid Virginia red-brick in sensitive combination with bluestone foundations and retaining walls, slate and soapstone accents, and wood-framed roof structures, windows and doors. • The collage of materials is well-detailed and provides appropriate scale and warmth for the desired intimacy.

Lincoln Center Addition
Southworth Library, Dryden, N.Y.

Click photo to enlargeDesigner: Holt Architects P.C., Ithaca, N.Y.
Stone Installer: Ithaca Stone Setting Inc., Ithaca, N.Y.
Stone Suppliers: Cleveland Quarries, Vermilion, Ohio; Hobart Stone Dealers Inc., Binghamton, N.Y.

The sale of an original, handwritten manuscript by Abraham Lincoln from his 1864 re-election address enabled the library to finance the construction of an addition to fulfill long unaddressed library needs.  The original 1894 library is a Romanesque-style design by architect William Henry Miller and listed on the National Registry of Historic Places.Click photo to enlarge

The design approach was to create two separate volumes, old and new, with a flat roof glazed connector serving as a transition between the two. Careful sampling and testing of the existing building stone determined it to be a quartzitic sandstone from Ohio; the original quarry could still supply the stone.

The original building employed full-depth, self-supporting rough-belly finished stone. Modern detailing was employed for the addition with smooth-sawn stone used for the trim; water table, accent bands, and around windows; and a 4” veneer stone, with a matching rough-bellied finish, for the balance of the addition.

Juror Comments:

• A beautiful addition to this unique, historic complex. Wonderful detailing and craftsmanship in the design and construction.

• A religious and authentic replication of the original building’s architectural character and qualities. It’s use and application of traditional stone elements for walls and roof create a great sense of depth and richness commonly associated with the power of Richardsonian style. In every way meets aspiration for recreating architecture of this period style.

• Knowing use of local sandstone allies this addition to its older neighbor and places it firmly in the New England architectural traditions characterized by H.H. Richardson. Solid proportions and strong details are appropriate attributes, as well; the overall effect is of a good citizen.