When does a project become a place? Once design and construction are complete, we as designers step back and watch as each space takes on a life of its own. How do you experience these places?
This is the story we will explore in a photographic exhibition revealing users’ perspectives of Mayer/Reed-designed places. Submit photographs now through July 31 via email or Instagram. Please see complete details about the call for entries here.
The American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) announced this week that Mayer/Reed won an Honor Award in Residential Design for its work on Bud Clark Commons. The society will present the award for the project to Mayer/Reed at its November annual meeting in Boston.
Bud Clark Commons is an urban mixed-use facility in Northwest Portland that offers comprehensive services to homeless persons. Mayer/Reed provided landscape architecture, urban design and visual communications services for the project, working closely with the project architects, Holst Architecture.
The ASLA awards program recognizes the best in the landscape architecture of public places, residential designs, campuses, parks and urban planning projects from across the United States and around the world. A jury composed of top practitioners and academicians from throughout North America selected this year’s honorees.
The Society for Environmental Graphic Design, a global community of people working at the intersection of communication design and the built environment, recognized the team of ZGF Architects interior group and Mayer/Reed with an Honor Award for their collaboration on the environmental graphics and wayfinding for the Randall Children’s Hospital in Portland, Oregon.
The jury reviewed submissions from around the world and awarded 17 merit awards, 1 jury award and 4 honor awards.
“Hospitals pose difficult EGD challenges that require rigorous, integrated solutions to communicate orientation information in a welcoming, comforting manner. Engaging, yet remarkably restrained for a children’s hospital, the signage and placemaking programs here reinforce each other to create delight and enhance both wayfinding and well-being.”
– Juror comment
Congratulations to Holst Architecture and the entire design team for their work on Bud Clark Commons, which was recognized by Residential Architect Magazine as the 2013 Project of the Year. Mayer/Reed designed the day center courtyard gate, communal outdoor spaces, building identity, and interior signs for the facility. Bud Clark Commons hosts a day center with counseling, a 90-bed men’s shelter and 130 low income studio apartments.
The jury evaluated more than 600 entries finally selecting 34 projects: one Project of the Year, 10 Grand awards, and 23 Merit awards. One juror praised the project stating, “This is an incredibly smart, respectful design. It has a real commitment to sustainability.” Another added, “As a piece of architecture in a city, it functions beautifully. It achieves a level of design a lot of higher-rent places don’t achieve.”