November 13, 2019
APDesign receives AIA Kansas City Merit Award
The Kansas State University College of Architecture, Planning & Design, known as APDesign, was honored at the Kansas City Chapter of the American Institute of Architects and the Design Excellence Awards ceremony for their chapter members' work for 2019. "APDesign – Seaton/Regnier Hall Expansion & Renovation" received the Design Merit Award for extra-large projects.
The formerly disjointed complex built and expanded between 1875 and 1959, the Seaton Hall Renovation + Expansion, designed by BNIM, Kansas City; and Ennead Architects, New York, New York; and constructed by J.E.Dunn, Kansas City; includes the renovation of two historic buildings — Mechanics Hall, ca.1875, the oldest standing university building in Kansas — and the original Seaton Hall, ca. 1909, with a new 110,000 square-foot addition connecting the buildings into a singular, expanded facility. Challenged to establish consistency in space and rhythm between new and old, the design team reorganized the buildings with 19 large, open interdisciplinary design labs primarily lining the east of the complex, buffered from the main concourse by a north-south oriented spine of support spaces. The spatial and programmatic disposition of the facility promotes disciplinary cross-pollination within open, porous and didactic spaces, including 49 design studio spaces in the 19 design laboratories, 17 dedicated critique spaces, 18 informal collaboration classrooms, 40 faculty offices, a digital teaching lab, the Weigel design library, a gallery, a 20,000 square-foot fabrication lab, a 300-person auditorium, and exterior spaces with an informal amphitheater, reading courtyard and commons areas for engaging university spaces and sequences. The exterior spaces were designed by Confluence and received a Design Honor Award by the Prairie Gateway Chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects in 2018.
The AIA Kansas City received 112 submissions from the Greater Kansas City community. The jury for the awards included the architects Andrew Berman, FAIA; Karen Fairbanks; and Mark Rusitzky, all from New York City.
The AIA Kansas City event co-chairs Joy Coleman, AIA. from TreanorHL and Kevin Wineinger, AIA, from GastingerWalker& said, "The projects are arranged by categories of Architecture, Interior Design, Concept Design and Divine Detail. Architecture submissions divided into five scale-based categories to ensure the submissions are judged against others with similar opportunities and constraints: Extra Small, Small, Medium, Large, and Extra Large. The categories of Interior Architecture, Concept, and Divine Detail provide an opportunity to celebrate our diversity of design talent across a variety of scales and project types."
"I am pleased to see our superb facility recognized in yet another design awards program, particularly by this superb jury," said Tim de Noble, FAIA, dean of APDesign. "These accolades, along with previous honors bestowed by AIA Kansas, ASLA Prairie Gateway Chapter, and the Associated General Contractors of Kansas underscore the general appreciation for the quality and execution of the design. This is a first-class facility to look at and work within."