The AIA has announced four projects as the winners of its inaugural Technology in Architectural Practice (TAP) Innovation Awards, with Morphosis Architects' Emerson College Los Angeles taking away the headline "Stellar Architecture" award. Started in 2005, the TAP Knowledge Community has led efforts to acknowledge and disseminate the best use of Building Information Modeling (BIM) technologies, and the AIA hopes that the new TAP Innovation Award will "enliven the discourse on how these innovations can advance the profession and practice of architecture and further the mission of the Institute."
See all four awarded projects after the break.
Winner: Stellar Architecture
Emerson College Los Angeles / Morphosis Architects
Celebrating exemplary design delivered with the use of the latest architectural design technology, this award was given to Emerson College largely thanks to the custom computational tool which Morphosis Architects used in the design. This tool allowed the balancing of aesthetic and sustainable features, with the project predicted to achieve LEED Gold, featuring an automated sunshade which maximizes views and a 31% reduction in water use.
Winner: Delivery Process Excellence
University of Delaware’s Interdisciplinary Science and Engineering Lab (ISE Lab); Newark, DE / Ayers Saint Gross
The Delivery Process Excellence Award is given to teams which demonstrated exceptional use of the collaborative potential of BIM to meet project goals. In the Interdisciplinary Science and Engineering Lab, Ayers Saint Gross worked with their consulting engineers to produce thirteen design models, which were then combined to give a full understanding of how the building's many systems affected each other. Through an open exchange of project files on the cloud and robotically-controlled construction methods, the project was delivered 60 days ahead of schedule.
Honorable Mention: Delivery Process Excellence
OHSU/PSU/OSU Collaborative Life Sciences Building; Portland, OR / SERA Architects and CO Architects
The honorable mention for the Delivery Process Excellence category was awarded to SERA Architects and CO Architects for their project which united 28 teams across 10 states. Going from inception to completion in just 38 months, a combination of digital collaboration and frequent clash-detection meetings allowed them to save the client an estimated $10 million.
Winner: Exemplary Use in a Small Firm
D-Bridge / Point B Design
The Exemplary Use in a Small Firm award is given to a practice of fewer than 10 staff for exemplary work on any stage of design. In their as-yet unbuilt D-Bridge project, Point B Design worked with BIM to design an extension to a private gallery and residence featuring 1,000 laser-cut cells of folded steel sheets.
