College of Architecture News

CoA Announces Winners of Portman Prize

Atlanta (January 8, 2007) — The Portman Prize Competition, funded by the office of John C. Portman, Jr., BS 1950, and his son Jack Portman, B Arch 1971, is an important annual event in the life of the College of Architecture that recognizes the best work from the Options I Graduate Design Studios. This year, the three Options I Graduate Design Studios, led by Professors Ed Akins, David Green, and Jimmy Smith, focused on the design of mixed-use housing along the proposed Atlanta BeltLine, a 22-mile in-town rail and trail loop that currently is being supported by Mayor Shirley Franklin.

“The complexity and scope of the project was enormous,” said Dr. Sherry Ahrentzen, one of the distinguished judges in the competition. “The students certainly rose to this challenge. Many students demonstrated well-studied, carefully rendered interior details of the units – and then at the same time successfully tackled some of the larger site and urban design issues. The jurors repeatedly mentioned how well students verbally presented their projects – not an easy feat given the extensiveness and development of the project and a presentation time limit of 5 minutes. “

The winners of the 2006 Portman Prize are:

First Place goes to Jeremy Magner from Professor Smith’s studio for his project titled, NEXUS.

“Jeremy developed an inventive narrative that takes his project from Atlanta’s beginnings as a crossroads in the South to a remarkable reinterpretation of the open air mall as a mixed-use complex,” said Smith. “His clearly defined circulation forms a cruciform that extends out both in plan and section into the site and that becomes the framework around which he organizes his mixed use program. Jeremy’s creative use of computer graphics and models combined with hand drawn sketches serves well to give his project a particularly compelling if somewhat mysterious allure.”

Second Place goes to Miharu Morimoto from Professor Akins’s studio for her project titled, Discovery.

“Miharu has an amazing work ethic and a seemingly fluid, systematic, approach to the process of design,” said Akins. “Within the studio we focused primarily on understanding place, provenience and provision as we accomplished the pedagogical goals for comprehensive design. Miharu examined the generative forces that surrounded the site to truly develop her own language of integration into the community. Additionally her intense study of the demographic and experiential qualities of public and private space, as well the efficiency and clarity of the ordered construction, resulted in a final work that was indisputably elegant and appropriate. The project provided conditions of constant variety and exploration without sacrificing the comfort of the user. It was this sense of discovery over time that allowed her to create a plausible solution to housing and craft a dialogue from which she was able to spin tales of college apartment living and empty nester sobriety within one building. Miharu operated within a framework of increased density to prove that the individual and the individual’s surroundings do not necessarily become compromised through the implementation of design efficiency and rigor. This was an inspiring project and she is an accomplished student.”

Third Place goes to Cassie Branum from Professor Green’s studio for her project titled, Variation.

“Cassie had a very clean, elegant solution that was extremely well worked out,” said Green. ”She questioned the relationship of the residential program and the commercial office program in a very non-traditional way, and she was able to resolve the inherent conflicts between the two programs that can emerge when they are located in the same building.”

Honorable Mention goes to Courtney Kelly from Professor Smith’s studio for her project titled, Connective Tissue.

“Courtney took a highly systematic approach toward her project by establishing a series of modular units that are set within a well designed structural frame,” said Smith. “She confronts the uncertainty of future urban development by creating a mixed-use program that addresses the idea of the appropriation of urban space both public and private. The result yields a design with a strong sense of tectonics that is both modern in expression yet contextual in nature, and that proves to be resolved at both the urban scale and at the scale of the individual unit.”

A distinguished panel of five individuals representing diverse points of view and cutting across urban centers around the country (Boston, Phoenix, San Francisco, New York, and Atlanta) was selected to judge the competition. They included: Jury Chair Jorge Silvetti, Sherry Ahrentzen, David Baker, FAIA; Hina Jamelle; and Walter Miller. The jury devoted a day to reviewing, discussing, and awarding the Prize.

“I thought the judges’ comments on all of the projects were very constructive,” said Kelly. “And I appreciated how respectful they were to all of the participants.”

Acting Director of the Architecture Program, Chris Jarrett, described this year’s panel of judges. “Jorge Silvetti is a highly regarded design teacher in the Graduate School of Design at Harvard, teaching for many years there, and also was Chair of the department from 1995-2002. His thirty-year design practice with Rodolfo Machado is well respected throughout the profession. Sherry Ahrentzen is a housing scholar. Her book New Households, New Housing is a standard reference in housing that takes a critical look at changing households and how such changes can inform new forms of living. David Baker is a multi-family housing expert who has built numerous mixed-income, high-density housing in San Francisco that has received many national awards. Hina Jamelle is a young, emerging designer in New York who commutes weekly to Philadelphia as an adjunct professor at the University of Pennsylvania. And Walt Miller represents Portman’s office, as director of their education studio. “

In addition to bringing in a distinguished and diverse jury and the monetary awards for the first, second, and third prize winners, the Portman Prize also provides additional resources to bring in a noted professional relevant to the Prize Program who gives lectures and individual student critiques during the semester, as well as serving as one of the judges. The 2006 Portman Critic was architect and housing expert David Baker, FAIA, of DB+P Architects in San Francisco.

“Having the Portman Prize at Georgia Tech’s College of Architecture adds another layer of experience to an already strong and diverse architectural program,” said Miller. “All of these activities made possible by the Prize enhances the studio experience for the students and provide another level of incite and learning that would not otherwise be possible.”

More about the judges:

Jorge Silvetti, jury chair, is a partner in the firm Machado/Silvetti in Boston. He is also the Nelson Robinson, Jr. Professor of Architecture in the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University, where he served as Chair of the Department of Architecture from 1995 to 2002. Three monographs have been produced on his firms work: 1) Rodolfo Machado and Jorge Silvetti: Buildings for Cities (1990); 2) Casas 40: Rodolfo Machado & Jorge Silvetti (1995); and 3) Unprecedented Realism: The Architecture of Machado and Silvetti (1995). In 1991, his firm was given the First Award in Architecture by the American Academy of Arts and Letters for twenty years of “boldly conceived and brilliantly executed urban projects.” The designs were commended for being “uncompromisingly dedicated to envisioning a meaningful architecture of the public realm.” His firm has received three National Honor Awards from the American Institute of Architects, nine Progressive Architecture awards and citations, eight design awards from the New England AIA chapter, and eight Boston Society of Architects awards, including the 2003 Harleston Parker Medal.

Sherry Ahrentzen is Professor and Associate Director of Research of the Stardust Center for Affordable Homes and the Family located in the College of Design at Arizona State University in Phoenix. Dr. Ahrentzen’s research focuses on new forms of housing to better accommodate the social and economic diversity of U.S. households and families. Her research has been published in Harvard Design Magazine, Progressive Architecture, Journal of Architectural and Planning Research, Builder, and Journal of Social Issues, and she has presented her work at the annual conferences of the American Institute of Architects, the Environmental Design Research Association and the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture. With Karen A. Franck, she edited the book New Households, New Housing.

David Baker is a partner in the firm of David Baker and Partners in San Francisco. His firms work is noted for its high-density, socially diverse, and energy-conscious multi-family housing. He has received numerous awards for his firms work, including recognition from the American Institute of Architects, the American Planning Association, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Solar Energy Society, and various building and publication organizations, such as Residential Architect, Builders Magazine, Dwell and Progressive Architecture. In 1996 David was selected as a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects. He has taught at the California College of the Arts, UC Berkeley, and Tulane University. He was also founder of Sol-Arc, a company dedicated to energy-efficient building.

Hina Jamelle is an Architect and Director at Contemporary Architecture Practice in New York, in partnership with Ali Rahim. Prior to joining C-A-P she was a client partner at Razorfish, a digital media consulting company. She has taught previously at Pratt Institute, University of Pennsylvania, and the University of Michigan. C-A-P’s residential projects include a high-rise in Dubai and single-family residence in London. Their work was most recently on exhibit this past summer at the Museum of Modern Art. Other exhibition venues include the 2006 Expo in Essen, Germany, Artists Space in New York, the Royal Institute of British Architects [RIBA], London and the Shanghai and London Architectural Biennale’s 2005 and 2006.

Walter Miller is Vice President of John Portman & Associates, Inc. and Director of the Education Studio in Atlanta . The firm has received over 45 local and national design awards and is known for its pioneering role of architect/developer in the context of dense urban centers worldwide. The Hyatt Regency Atlanta built in the late 1970's, with its 22-story atrium set forth a new precedent in hotel design that continues to this day. Miller has extensive experience in both planning and architectural design of large-scale, mixed-use urban projects, and he is the recipient of several awards including The Lloyd Warren Fellowship, the 65th Paris Prize, and the William Van Alen Architect Memorial Fellowship.

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