Friday, February 11, 2005

Prof. W.G. Clark’s Firm Wins International Design Competition

A design by W.G. Clark Associates, the Charlottesville architectural design firm founded by Professor of Architecture and alumnus W.G. Clark (BSArch’65) and including alumni Azadeh Rashidi (BSArch’95, MArch’00) and Joshua Stastny (MArch’00, MLA’01), has won first prize in the Clemson Architecture Center in Charleston International Design Competition. The project is for a small School of Architecture building in historic downtown Charleston, South Carolina, where Clemson University has maintained an urban extension for the past twenty years.

The winning team also includes Gregg Bleam Landscape Architects, of Charlottesville; Riesberg Architects, of Charleston; 2RW Consulting Engineers, of Charlottesville; and 4SE Structural Engineers and Forsberg Civil Engineers, both of Charleston.

The winning design reflects an intention to make a building which respects and is derived from the urban pattern and building traditions of the city, while housing and representing the needs and aspirations of a dynamic, modern school. An urban court figures at the center of the design, unifying the various programmatic aspects of the school while also serving as a threshold to the public realm of the city. The design seeks to restate the dominant pattern of Charleston, an equivalence of landscape and building.

Finalists in the competition included: Kennedy & Violich Architecture, Ltd. of Boston (second place); Cruz y Ortiz Arquitectos, of Spain; Ann Beha Architects, of Boston; and Allied Works Architecture, Inc., of Portland, Oregon.