CCM VILLAGE RECEIVES 2001 NATIONAL HONOR
AWARD FROM AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF ARCHITECTS
Pei Cobb Freed & Partners' $93.2 million project one of 14 national recipients
Date: Jan. 5, 2001
By: Carrie Throm
Phone: (513) 556-9485
Photos by: Timothy Hursley
Archive: General News
The College-Conservatory of Music's new "campus village," designed by Henry N. Cobb of Pei Cobb Freed & Partners, has received a national honor award for outstanding architecture from the American Institute of Architects. Fourteen projects throughout the nation were selected from among 421 submissions in this category; awards were also given in the areas of interiors and urban design. The AIA Honor Awards, the profession's highest recognition of excellence in design, will be presented May 19 at the 2001 AIA National Convention and Expo in Denver.
"One of the undeniable pleasures of a booming economy is the rich palette of architectural projects undertaken, and this year's Honor Award recipients offer some of the best," said AIA President John D. Anderson, FAIA. "If there is a trend to be found among this year's winners, it is in the high number of projects that improve the quality of life for neighborhoods, communities, and the citizens who inhabit them."
The CCM Village was designed to significantly enhance the college's teaching and performance capabilities. The school's pre-existing premises were crammed like a bone in the throat into an awkwardly shaped, steeply sloped site, and the school required new facilities that would more than double its existing floor area. A thorough analysis concluded that existing performance spaces should be retained and renovated, while the existing academic wing should be replaced. It was also determined that two nearby buildings - an abandoned gymnasium and an obsolete dormitory - would lend themselves well to renovation for use by the school. The highly complex master plan and design is a study in balance - between renovation and new construction, academic peace and construction schedules, gathering places and studying places.
"When I first visited CCM, I was struck by the extraordinary vitality of the life there and the equally extraordinary miserableness of the environment," notes Henry N. Cobb. "It seemed a great shame that activities so inherently and exuberantly creative, so life-enhancing, should be taking place in such a deadly environment. In creating a new campus village for CCM, we've ended up converting what was one of the worst places on the campus into one of the best. This transformation is what I'm most proud of, because we created something positive for the whole University, not just CCM."
The AIA jury called the CCM Village "an imaginative reuse of existing buildings that provides an attractive interior and exterior gathering place for performing arts. A complex program is given urban form through a simple yet strong design…details of public circulation spaces are effective through the restrained palette of materials and colors used."
Other award winners for outstanding architecture include:
the Queens Borough Public Library of Flushing, New York
Downtown Homeless Drop In Center of Los Angeles
The Conde Nast Building in New York City
Benaroya Hall in Seattle
The CCM Village has also received awards from AIA-Columbus (due to NBBJ, the project's associate architect, being headquartered there) and AIA-State of Ohio.
Fifty-two years ago, the AIA Honor Awards were created to recognize achievements in a range of architectural activity to elevate the general quality of architectural practice, establish a standard of excellence against which all architects can measure performance, and inform the public of the breadth and value of architecture.
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