We are pleased to announce the Milken Institute School of Public Health at George Washington University (in association with Ayers Saint Gross) has been named as a recipient of the AIA Institute Honor Awards for Interior Architecture. The Institute Honor Awards are the profession’s highest recognition of works that exemplify excellence in architecture, interior architecture and urban design.
Located on iconic Washington Circle Park in the heart of the nation’s capital, GW’s School of Public Health is a rigorous, innovative response to site and program. With its most sustainable solutions so deeply embedded as to be nearly indistinguishable, it keenly demonstrates the symbiotic relationship between sustainability and public health. The building’s unusual skylit atrium, in which classrooms and study areas overlook the city through an open latticework of floor openings, invites exploration and discovery. The building supports a highly effective learning and interaction environment that is equally memorable for its intimacy and transparency.
In pursuit of the core values of public health—light, air, well-being—this new school defies many norms to overcome the constraints of an unusual triangular site in downtown Washington DC. 140 feet wide at its center, but narrow at its extremities, the development footprint was capped in height and allowable floor area.
While the required office and classroom program would have fit on six above-grade floors, the floor-to-floor height was squeezed to twelve feet and a 7th level was inserted within the allowable zoning envelope instead. As a result, expansive floor openings on each level drive daylight, air and views deep into its thick core.
We’re honored to have this project included among the most recent list of Institute Honorees.
Related:
AIA reveals winners of 2017 Honor Awards for the year’s best American architecture
Sandrine Héroux, Sophie McKenzie, and Emily Chowdhury are each members of our in-house Fabrication team. Their day-to-day work centers on a simple question: what changes when design becomes something people can physically test?
These women challenge the notion of fabrication as a support service, framing it instead as an essential component of architectural authorship, a way to test ideas, share agency, and widen the boundaries of what architectural practice can include.
In our most recent blog, they discuss their individual paths in architecture and reflect on their experience using fabrication as a tool for fostering shared agency, community engagement and broadening the role of the architect. Link in bio!
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