Colorado Architects Arch11 Receive AIA Awards for Design of Commercial Headquarters and Park Pavilions
Denver, Colo. (PRWEB) October 29, 2015 -- Boulder/Denver architecture firm Arch11 received three awards from AIA Colorado at the recent annual AIA Practice and Design Conference in Keystone, Colo. Arch11 received both an AIA Colorado North honor award and an AIA Western Mountain Region honor award for its design collaboration with ZGF Architects on Pearl Izumi’s North American Corporate Headquarters in Louisville, Colo. The project had previously received a World Architecture News award for commercial design in April, as well as a recent Metal Roofing Award from the Metal Construction Association, publisher of Metal Architecture magazine. At the Keystone awards ceremony, Arch11 also received a citation from AIA’s Western Mountain Region chapter for its unbuilt design for park shade pavilions for Denver’s Stapleton neighborhood.
The design for Pearl Izumi’s North American headquarters in Louisville, a collaboration between Arch11 and ZGF Architects, was a demonstration in artfully integrating complex programmatic elements within a new 55,000-square-foot energy-efficient structure. Like its outdoor-loving, athletic customers, Pearl Izumi envisioned an equally high-performing work environment for its employees. The workspace for the AIA award-winning structure features open and transparent offices along with shared amenities that include a fitness room, living room, collaboration spaces, break areas, bike room, locker rooms, a protected courtyard, porches and an outdoor amphitheater.
Pearl Izumi wanted its new building to have “a connection to the outdoors and a conversation about being of the earth,” says Arch11 Principal E.J. Meade. With immediate access to recreation trails and dramatic views of the area’s famed Flatirons, the elongated floor plan is oriented outward so “wherever you are, you have a view to the landscape,” he adds. Paying homage to the site’s agrarian roots, the architects selected a minimal palette of natural weathering steel, concrete, glass, and recycled snow fence for cladding. As a result, the low-slung building appears to organically emerge from the ground plane and follow the gentle topography of the site.
The AIA Colorado jury praised the Pearl Izumi project as both “thoroughly conceived” and “strikingly elegant and yet provocatively strange in its long, low scissoring form.” They also appreciated how “the weathering steel and reclaimed wood exterior interlace seamlessly with the surrounding meadow landscape.”
Arch11’s award-winning pavilion designs for a park in Denver’s Stapleton neighborhood draw inspiration from the agricultural heritage of the Colorado prairie. Taking cues from a landscape once dotted with utilitarian structures such as barns, sheds and silos, each shade pavilion is conceived as a similar, isolated element within the park. The positioning of each pavilion’s colorful and angled canopy will allow light to filter through the supporting structure and also create passive rainwater collection points. Each pavilion is designed to be site-specific while creating a family of related structures across the park landscape.
AIA jury members admired Arch11’s pavilion designs for their “exploration into a minimal lexicon of structural and perceptual operations that would succeed in changing the landscape if built.”
About Arch11:
Founded in 1993, Arch11 has gained recognition for projects ranging from exceptional residences to institutional planning, mixed-use development and product design, including a 2009 Firm of the Year Award from the Colorado AIA North chapter. With offices in Boulder and Denver, Colo., Arch11 has over 30 combined years of green building technology leadership. The staff’s unusual level of hands-on experience ranges from boat building to furniture making, contributing to its reputation for commitment to craft, detailing and design integrity. For additional information visit http://www.arch11.com.
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Darla Worden, WordenGroup, http://www.wordenpr.com, +1 303.777.7667, [email protected]
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