2018 BQDA Design of the Year

James River House - ARCHITECTUREFIRM (Scottsville, VA)
Photo Credit: James Ewing/OTTO
The James River House was designed for a family with three young boys, as a place for them to grow and learn from their surroundings.  Three volumes hover above a bluff alongside a bend in the James River, arranged loosely and lightly on the land like a scattered group of stones around a campfire.  The arrangement of these volumes allows the visitor to slip between the house, opening the view to reveal light, river, and the woods.  Flanked by sleeping quarters, the central area is at once hearth and dining hall and is the nexus of activity for the family.
 
Project Completion: 2013

Residential (1-2 Family)

BQDA Award of Excellence
Park Slope Townhouse - Resolution 4 Architecture (Brooklyn, NY)
Photo Credit: Eric Soltan Photography
This five-story townhouse is home to a young family of four. The front façade combines brick, cedar, and black aluminum panels. Maintaining an indoor-outdoor connection throughout, balconies and terraces open each floor up to exterior spaces. Inside, an open tread stair wraps a black steel wall, linking all five levels. An exterior stair connects the backyard to a dining terrace, which opens to the double height living space. A custom wraparound sofa and aquarium define the living room, while a wall of teak cabinetry stitches together the living spaces and provides storage. The curving kitchen island grounds the living space.

​Project Completion: 2017
BQDA Award of Merit
Surfboard House - Barker Freeman (Queens, NY)
Photo Credit: Francis Dzikowski/OTTO
Five years after Hurricane Sandy wreaked havoc on the coastline of New York City, the Surfboard House was completed on a waterfront lot in Breezy Point, Queens, where a house had been washed away. Rebuilding required following strict flood regulations. The resulting building envelope allows nearly every room to have an ocean view. Water-resistant fiberglass wraps the roof and projecting surfboard-like sun shade.  Inside, concrete tiled floors provide continuity across the living, kitchen and dining room and first floor master suite.  Upstairs, the three bedrooms enjoy views through corner windows.  A den and covered deck provide additional family gathering spaces.


Project Completion: 2016

Residential (Multiple Family/Multiple Dwelling)

BQDA Award of Excellence
The Forge - FXCollaborative (Long Island City, NY)
Photo Credit: Eduard Hueber/archphoto and Adam Kane Macchia
The Forge is a luxury rental apartment building located in the Long Island City neighborhood of Queens. The 33-story building accommodates 272 residences and boasts amenities including a communal living room, an outdoor movie screening area, a roof deck with pool, a private party room, and a sky lounge. Rooted in the neighborhood’s artistic culture and industrial heritage, the design is a strong contemporary composition distinguished by warm, cooper-colored frames and bands of glass. The interior continues the theme with an interplay between cool steel, warm wood, glassy finishes, and leather details.

Project Completion: 2017
BQDA Award of Merit
Greenpoint Condominium - Lubrano Ciavarra Architects (Brooklyn, NY)
Photo Credit: Chris Cooper Photographer
Over the recent years, Greenpoint has seen a surge in oversized glassy waterfront developments that strip the neighborhood from its history and identity. Sited just one block east of the East River, we wanted a small scale residential building that would be sensitive to the culture and context of the area. In exploring masonry patterning and modern construction technologies, the building’s massing and brick façade creates an urban scale bay window and elongated front stoop. Together, these volumetric moves offer privacy from the street for residents, views of the river beyond, and an urban garden for the community to enjoy. 

Project Completion: 2017

Residential (Mix Use Residential)

BQDA Award of Merit
Pierhouse at Brooklyn Bridge Park - Marvel Architects  (Brooklyn, NY)
Photo Credit: David Sundberg/ESTO
Pierhouse comprises 106 condominium units; 300-car below grade parking garage, 17,000 sf Event Space, and 195-key hotel in a 550,000 square feet complex of connected buildings ranging from four to ten stories.  Pierhouse performs as an extension of Brooklyn Bridge Park - a verdant backdrop recalling the high, sandy bank of pre-colonial Brooklyn Heights, screening urban noise while facilitating waterfront access. 

Project Completion: 2016

Institutional

BQDA Award of Excellence
Greenpoint EMS Station - Michielli + Wyetzner Architects  (Brooklyn, NY)
Photo Credit: Alexander Severin Architectural Photography
The two-story, 10,400 square-foot Greenpoint EMS Station in Williamsburg, Brooklyn houses a high-bay vehicle area, administrative offices, staff training and support spaces for FDNY/ EMS personnel. A central shift in section subdivides four basic use areas and allows for the different height requirements of the program. A linear skylight marks the shift, permitting daylight deep into the building, where personnel on the second floor can view the ground floor vehicle bay.  A sculptural, glazed egress stair along the façade, interrupts a 90’ long translucent glass plane floating above “FDNY red” vehicle doors establishing a strong civic image for the building.  

Project Completion: 2016
BQDA Award of Merit
Pratt Institute, Department of Film and Video - Think-Arc (Brooklyn, NY)
Photo Credit: Alexander Severin Architectural Photography
The space available for the new facility was a pre-engineered shed building with 15,000 square feet of column free space, and 23 foot high ceilings and was previously the home of the Pratt Store. We conceived of the space as not only an up-to-the-minute, high tech facility, but more importantly as a place of learning where opportunities could be created outside the classroom for student/faculty and student/student interaction, innovation and creativity.  The facility was designed as a series of freestanding objects – two sound stages, post-production suites, sound recording and screening room – allowing for a variety of interstitial spaces between, for informal meeting and collaboration.

Project Completion: 2016

Commercial - Small Projects

BQDA Award of Merit
DOT Painting Department Storage House - Building Studio Architects (Brooklyn, NY)
Photo Credit: Ashok Sinha Photography
This project is simply built, with ground faced concrete block complimenting the granite bridge embankment, and painted metal detailing reflecting the bridge steel high overhead. Natural light is employed in the building by channel glass clerestory windows with aluminum frames and skylights to reduce the need for internal illumination. Painted steel channel parapets and details echo the bridge structure above. The original design for the site used Cor-ten weathering steel to replace the chain-link and to create visual interest at the sidewalk, while occluding the materials and equipment in the yard. 

Project Completion: 2016

Commercial - Large Projects

BQDA Award of Merit
Sculpture Studio - Andrew Berman Architect (Brooklyn, NY)
Photo Credit: Michael Moran/OTTO
This project repurposes a long-underutilized industrial site as a studio complex for a sculptor and his team. It includes the renovation of a warehouse building and a new equipment hall and forecourt. The facility reflects a multi-staged production process in which stone saws and CNC mills are used to cut and rough shape the stone prior to hand carving and finishing. Various studios support digital imaging, photography, woodworking, metalworking, sandblasting, and hand carving. Natural light maximizes the quality of each workspace. The entire facility will have a planted roof, returning greenery to an area that has long been without it. 
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Project Completion: 2018

Urban Planning/Design

BQDA Award of Excellence
Naval Cemetery Landscape - Marvel Architects & Nelson Byrd Woltz Landscape Architects (Brooklyn, NY)
Photo Credit: Max Toughey
The location is rethought as an open space along the length of the Brooklyn Greenway and reactivated as a publicly accessible landscape.  The design features a wildflower meadow and sacred grove, framed by an undulating boardwalk lifted above the hallowed ground.  The raised walking path provides access around the perimeter of the site and its large central meadow.  Two small seating areas for education and reflection are placed along the walkway, expanding the site’s potential uses to include outdoor classes or talks.  The experience of inhabiting this space evokes the histories of settlement and cultivation, life and death, while slowing the heart rate and connecting visitors with the stories of the site. The work was partly funded by a grant with a mission to reconnect urban residents with nature and histories of place.

Project Completion: 2016
BQDA Award of Merit
NYCHA Red Hook Houses Sandy Resiliency Renewal - Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates (Brooklyn, NY)
Photo Credit: Kohn Pedersen and Fox
Like many communities across New York City, the Red Hook community was hit hard by Superstorm Sandy. Sandy left many of Red Hook Houses’ 6,000 residents without power and without access to food, supplies, and medical assistance. Working alongside community members, the team developed a master plan that lessens the community’s vulnerability to natural disasters and improves the sustainability and livability of the development. The master plan includes two freestanding buildings for boilers raised above ground level, 14 “utility pods” dispersed throughout the campus, and a nonobtrusive “lily pad” landscape solution to provide flood protection to buildings and entrances. 

Additions/Renovations

BQDA Award of Merit
House for Booklovers and Cats - Barker Freeman (Queens, NY)
Photo Credit: Francis Dzikowski/OTTO
This rowhouse was converted into a series of light-filled spaces accented with colorful details for a pair of booklovers and their two shy but inquisitive cats. A continuous 50 foot wall of shelving lines the parlor floor and creates spaces for the cats to observe activities below.  Trap doors at either end allow the cats access to second floor rooms. A two-story wall of glass at the back floods the interior with light. Upstairs, the artist’s studio at the back of the house contains her skylit corner “nest” — a partially concealed, elevated space in which to write and think.

Project Completion: 2016

Adaptive Reuse/Historic Preservation

BQDA Award of Excellence
Empire Stores - Studio V (Brooklyn, NY)
Photo Credit: David Rahr, Lester Ali
Comprised of seven Civil War-era brick structures nestled between the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges, Empire Stores was home to coffee “stores” or warehouses for over a century. Today, its radical design and innovative construction methods breathe new life into these multi-purpose structures. Public space intermingles with private, and on top of the building’s extensive green roofs sits a two-story glass and steel addition with a public park offering stunning views of the adjacent bridges and Manhattan skyline. Since its completion, Empire Stores has welcomed a new mix of tenants from the technology, media, retail, hospitality and cultural sectors, exchanging its industrial heritage for a creative future. The vertical courtyard carves out a social space in the building while simultaneously displaying the energy and activity of its creative businesses. 

Project Completion: 2017
BQDA Award of Merit
Building 77 at the Brooklyn Navy Yard - Marvel Architects (Brooklyn, NY)
Photo Credit: David Sundberg/ESTO
Reopened in 2017, Building 77 is a modern production center in the Brooklyn Navy Yard located on Flushing Avenue between the DUMBO, Williamsburg and Fort Green neighborhoods of Brooklyn. The building systems allow tenant build-out for a mix of office, design and production space with direct connection to entrance lobbies and docks for load-in and distribution of materials and products.  The ground floor is designed for food production tenants, providing retail opportunity at the central, public pedestrian corridor with production loading and distribution at the docks.

Project Completion: 2017

Sustainable Design

BQDA Award of Excellence
Zerega Avenue EMS Station - Smith-Miller Hawkinson Architecture (Bronx, NY)
Photo Credit: Michael Moran
The Zerega EMS facility, commissioned by Mayor Bloomberg, whose, NYC 2030 Plan for the NYC Metropolis forecasted a City responsible to Citizens. Designed in 2008, completed in 2014, the project was the City’s first public project supporting a green roof, solar-tube skylights, photovoltaics, hydronic heating and parking lot bio-swales.
 
The EMS brings emergency services to the Community, broadcasting an optimistic message; its green roof visible from street and tower, its translucent polycarbonate skin transparent by day and luminous by night, and its welcoming cantilevered portico all portend a bright future. 

Project Completion: 2014

Interiors

BQDA Award of Merit
Motivate + Citi Bike Headquarters - studio modh architecture (Brooklyn, NY)
Photo Credit: Devon Banks
The new Motivate / Citi Bike offices are the modern evolution of New York’s industrial past housed within the concrete and oak frame of Industry City on Brooklyn’s waterfront. Using a “Swiss Army Wall” of warm wood battens backed by recycled rubber panels to organize the space and manage sound and light, the new space modulates the size and privacy of spaces to afford a variety of working methods (individual, collaborative, contemplative, and mechanical) to co-exist productively. It is a machine for twenty first century work.

Project Completion: 2017

Small Firm/Sole Practitioner

BQDA Award of Excellence
Brooklyn Heights Montessori School - PellOverton Architects (Brooklyn, NY)
Photo Credit: Simplicitte, Inc.
The design for the Brooklyn Heights Montessori School organizes a series of new indoor and outdoor instructional and recreational spaces across the school’s three buildings, in conjunction with the redesign of the Visual and Performing Arts department. This includes a new enclosed turf area and outdoor classroom on a previously unoccupiable rooftop, and a covered Arts Bridge to connect these spaces to new interior classrooms and galleries. Each of these areas is designed to support both specific activities and informal uses, and to collectively promote continuity and engagement between the school community and their shared physical environment.
 
Project Completion: 2018
BQDA Award of Merit
Putnam Townhouse - Shapeless Studio (Brookyn, NY)
Photo Credit: Kate Sears Photography
Putnam Townhouse, originally built in 1884 in the Neo-Grec syle, was purchased in 2016 in an extreme state of disrepair. The project was a surgical “gut renovation,” where the electrical, plumbing and mechanical systems were overhauled without disturbing the remaining mouldings and woodwork.  The renovation breathed life back into the home, empowering the ornate historic elements by seamlessly integrating minimal, modern upgrades that quietly respect, instead of compete with, the gravitas of the original details.  The 19th century layout, with more divisions and smaller rooms, was converted into new spaces that function better for the 21st century.
 
Project Completion: 2017

Local Firm/Beyond BQDA/International

BQDA Award of Excellence
James River House - ARCHITECTUREFIRM (Scottsville, VA)
Photo Credit: James Ewing/OTTO
The James River House was designed for a family with three young boys, as a place for them to grow and learn from their surroundings.  Three volumes hover above a bluff alongside a bend in the James River, arranged loosely and lightly on the land like a scattered group of stones around a campfire.  The arrangement of these volumes allows the visitor to slip between the house, opening the view to reveal light, river, and the woods.  Flanked by sleeping quarters, the central area is at once hearth and dining hall and is the nexus of activity for the family.
 
Project Completion: 2013
BQDA Award of Merit
Lake House - ARCHITECTUREFIRM (Wilkesboro, NC)
Photo Credit: James Ewing/OTTO
The Lake House is a retreat for a young family in the woods of Wilkes County, NC. The property occupies a steep incline through a natural clearing and to the shores of a small inlet on a lake. The house takes advantage of this clearing by placing itself directly in the middle of it and mid-slope, so the experience from within can vary from lofty canopy to woodland edge, from controlled landscape to natural forest density. The singular volume, clad in naturally weathering cypress, is then carved and formed to create multiple physical arrangements of people to place. 
 
Project Completion: 2013

Local Firm/Local Project

BQDA Award of Excellence
An Extended Townhouse - VonDalwig (Brooklyn, NY)
Photo Credit: Alan Tansey
The property – an existing 19.5’ wide x 42’ long three-story single family row house in Park Slope, Brooklyn – became a study of typology, volume, program and light. A renovation project with an added rear extension became the vehicle to re-arrange and re-evaluate volumes and spatial relationships to deconstruct typical boundaries in a row house typology resulting in interconnected rooms that offer the client a more spatial and light-filled experience.
 
Project Completion: 2016
BQDA Award of Merit
Architect and Collaborators Office - CWB Architects (Brooklyn, NY)
Photo Credit: Rachael Stollar
As a growing architecture firm, when we relocated our office we seized the opportunity to create not just a workplace for us, but also a hub for Brooklyn creatives. We artfully designed an office space that accommodates an open plan for our designers, office alcoves for sub-tenants, conference rooms for private meetings, and a kitchen for communal meals and conversing across the many disciplines that inhabit our workplace. We are proud to house ten small Brooklyn businesses, totaling a collective of 40 individuals sharing space and ideas throughout our workdays.
 
Project Completion: 2017

Pro Bono

BQDA Award of Excellence
The Connective Project - Reddymade (Brooklyn, NY)
The Connective Project is a collaborative public engagement art project consisting of 7,000 sculpturally arranged pinwheels, many exhibiting artworks made by the public, onsite and through curated submissions, installed in the Rose Garden in Prospect Park. 

Project Completion: 2017

Chapter Award

Brooklyn Chapter Award
James River House - ARCHITECTUREFIRM (Scottsville, VA)
Photo Credit: James Ewing
The James River House was designed for a family with three young boys, as a place for them to grow and learn from their surroundings.  Three volumes hover above a bluff alongside a bend in the James River, arranged loosely and lightly on the land like a scattered group of stones around a campfire.  The arrangement of these volumes allows the visitor to slip between the house, opening the view to reveal light, river, and the woods.  Flanked by sleeping quarters, the central area is at once hearth and dining hall and is the nexus of activity for the family.
 
Project Completion: 2013
Queens Chapter Award
United Talmudical Academy School - Zambrano Architectural Design (Brooklyn, NY)
Photo Credit: Eric Soltan Photography
The United Talmudical Academy of Borough Park is a new school building in an acute corner site of Clara street and 36th street, in Borough Park, Brooklyn. It is an institutional educational and public assembly building for a Hasidic Jewish community.   Its 77,000 g.s.f. building includes a Pre-K to 12th grade school program for 1,400 children inside a six-story building and cellar space. The program includes a dedicated community synagogue and a cellar level multi-purpose double height public assembly room.  The design combines small and large building pieces that identify classroom areas, circulation stairways and a golden tower.   Clad in masonry walls with precast stone accent bands, glass and metal window systems and a centrally placed golden corrugated metal clad tower that identifies its formal building entrance.

Project Completion: 2017
Bronx Chapter Award
Single Family House - Studio 360 (Rye, NY)
Photo Credit: Mark Roskams
Renovating this house in Westchester, with a green perspective, presented a unique set of considerations and challenges. It started by educating and collaborating with our client to ensure that the project can be environmentally friendly and in budget without sacrificing any of the aesthetic value of the project.

Project Completion: 2016

Unbuilt

BQDA Award of Excellence
Stair Well Housing - 590 BC (NYC Zoned for R6)
Photo Credit: 590 BC
Stair-Well Housing represents a concept for modular housing design intended to address NYCs dire need to bring low cost, efficient affordable housing to the five boroughs. The flexible, stacking design is conceived to take advantage of the many vacant infill lots located in developing, low-rise neighborhoods in the 5 boroughs. The invention is in the single stair run integrated into each module which, when stacked, provides continuous access to the unit above and integrates egress pathways. Through the integration of private interior and exterior spaces and the use of the sun-filled common 
BQDA Award of Merit
Greenpoint Library and Environment Education Center - Marble Fairbanks Architects (Brooklyn, NY)
Photo Credit: Marble Fairbanks Architects
The Greenpoint Library and Environmental Education Center models new partnerships and unique, community-driven goals in the planning of public libraries – pairing state-of-the-art library services with community spaces for events and activities related to environmental awareness, in a building designed as a demonstration project for innovative approaches to sustainable design.

People's Choice Awards

BQDA Brooklyn People's Choice Award
​Brooklyn Bowery Presents: Brooklyn Steel - HLW International (Brooklyn, NY)
Photo Credit: Gregg Greenwood
As the leading promoter of live music in New York City, Bowery Presents provides a great experience to both concertgoers and performers. The design brief stipulated functionality, good sight lines, great sound, and a durable, authentic vibe. The renovated 20,000 sf space includes a double-height pre-function area, a multi-tiered, acoustically tuned performance hall with a mobile stage, three bars, multiple green rooms, and ancillary support spaces. Unseen by visitors, a unique green roof system was engineered specifically to mitigate sound transmission outside the building. Local artists and welders were enlisted to create unique environments in various spaces throughout the venue, which retains a raw industrial quality. The result has been satisfied performers and music fans and sold-out shows since opening.

Project Completion: 2017
BQDA Queens People's Choice Award
​ARC - GKV Architects (Queens, NY)
Photo Credit: Kim Wendell Design
Arc is a 10-story mixed-use building located in LIC. Ringing most of an entire city block, the building houses 428 apartments, in addition to ground floor retail, basement parking and a commercial garage.
The residential component includes extensive amenities: a 25,000sf landscaped courtyard with a greenhouse, an indoor/outdoor gym, basketball half-court, golf simulator, recreational game room and a lounge and party room with a catwalk. Indoor amenities cover over 12,000sf. In addition, there is a rooftop get-away with a pool, a bocce court, barbeque grills and a trellised picnic area.

Project Completion: 2018
BQDA Bronx People's Choice Award
​The Bronx Defenders Justice Campus - Alta Indelman Architects (Bronx, NY)
Photo Credit: Sarah Muehlbauer
The Bronx Defenders, a major community resource, is a nonprofit organization that provides innovative public defense services throughout the borough of the Bronx.  The Bronx Defenders Justice Campus occupies over 30,000sf of street level space at E 161st Street and Park Avenue in the Bronx. This project encompasses the recently renovated spaces at these locations. The Justice Campus houses office space for over 300 staff who work in collaborative teams.  The interiors use simple, economical materials - wallboard, plastic laminate and paint, to create a vibrant environment. The Bronx Defenders clientele includes some of the poorest residents of New York City, many facing significant life crises.  It is important to the Bronx Defenders that their offices be uplifting to clients, as well as spacious and supportive of the on-site staff.

Project Completion: 2017
BQDA Beyond People's Choice Award
​Fox Run - Khanna Schultz (Greenwich, CT)
Photo Credit: Michael Moran
The brief for the design was to modernize the interior to make it an inviting home for a family. The existing house was to be fully gutted, and an extension built to include a guest suite, mudroom, and family room. Except for a few iconic moments such as the main stair, the floor plan was completely rearranged. Walls were removed and circulation rerouted to create open spaces and long sightlines. Windows and exterior doors were subtly enlarged while respecting the scale of the original composition. Because of a design covenant on the property, the extension had to respect the original style and lines of the house, and was built with brick and slate carefully matched to the original materials. Nevertheless, the composition of the extension was altered with corner windows and sculptural rooflines to provide a modern interpretation of the vernacular style. 

Project Completion: 2017