The reception for winners was held on Friday, February 20 at
the Dallas Museum of Art. It was well attended and KERA's Betsy Lewis
with Art & Seek was on hand to provide ongoing coverage. Thank you to all who made it. Below are the jury comments.
JURY COMMENTS
The jury was impressed with the overall richness, variety, and energy
that the 45 entries displayed. Overall, there was a sense of
exploration that led to some bold and dramatic designs. The range of
participants included architects and designers from the DFW area as
well as nationally. There were also entries from college, high school,
and middle school students. This added up to a wide variety of designs
that displayed wide range of experiences, skills and visions. Choosing
the top 3 winners and 3 honorable mentions generated a lot of
conversation and debate among the jurors.
The first place design - Open Space by
Amy Wynne and Mark Leveno was
executed elegantly in terms of formal exploration, spatial
manipulation, and functional versatility. Two of the adjoining walls
were on pivots, which could be moved outwards thus allowing the studio
space to expand and extend into nature. Natural light was allowed to
enter from multiple sides of the studio including the ceiling. The
material selection and the interior furnishings were very well
detailed.
The second place design by
Simon Chen
was the most detailed and home-like of the designs while still pushing
the design limits of the structure. The roof was carved to create a
dynamic space, which was populated in one corner by a living tree whose
canopy poked through the studio roof. The rest of the work and living
space had an almost Victorian flair, a spiral staircase, an arched
stain glass window, and an over stuffed couch. The complexity and wit
of this project was quite refreshing. The jurors agreed that this space
would be good for a writer or a painter that worked outdoors.
The third place scheme by
Eryka Bueno-Zavala
was a geometric structure inspired by Le Corbusier’s chapel of Notre
Dame du Haut in Ronchamp, with additional hints of Mondrian and the
Russian Constructivists. The key was that the project combined historic
influences into an elegant solution that was experiential and colorful
without being so over whelming that it could not function as a viable
studio space. Of note were the sculpted skylights and the Mondrian
style glass walls with inserts of stained glass.
The three honorable mentions could not have been more different from each other. The design by
Anna Ishii
was an exploration of recycled materials such as wood pallets and milk
crates as modular building units to create a studio structure. This
design embraced La Reunion TX’s commitment to low environmental impact
while stretching the boundaries of how open an art studio could be.
Another design The Iris Haus by
R. Lee Miller
was designed as a photography studio. It involved a clean plan with
concrete walls flanked by an LCD curtain wall and a tubular structural
wall. The quality of light and the views of nature through the tree
inspired patterned openings in the walls are extraordinary, but the
heavy concrete walls were quite harsh on the landscape.
The final design by
Araceli Alamo
was made for musicians, and began as a very basic, open cube. The back
wall and roof were pushed outwards to create an acoustic environment
that resembled that of a symphony hall. Cylindrical flute like
attachments penetrated the roof and would create musical tones when
ever the wind blew across them.
Jurors –
Bang Dang, Architect for Cunningham Architects
Brad Ford Smith, Artist and Conservator
Mara Salas, Architectural Intern for Corgan Associates