SOM's Culture of Collaboration Celebrates 10 Design Awards

CHICAGO, Oct. 31, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- A three-story granite staircase suspended from the 154th floor, four ancient Chinese villages giving a 400,000-student "campus" its character, a "green" high rise lifting out of Hong Kong mid-rise density on a "tree trunk," and an initiative to revitalize the environment and economy of the two-nation Great Lakes region indicate the depth and breadth of the work of the Chicago office of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP (SOM) honored this evening by an unprecedented 10 Design Excellence Awards from the Chicago Chapter of the American Institute of Architects (AIA).

The 10 award-winning projects recognize the synergy of design and high performance SOM celebrates as the collaboration among its practices – architecture, structural engineering, city design, interior design and sustainable and MEP engineering. This comprehensive approach to innovative design excellence is the SOM hallmark of the firm celebrated on Friday during AIA Chicago's Designight at Chicago's Navy Pier Grand Ballroom.  SOM won at least one award in every award category offered by the AIA.

Distinguished Building

• Shanghai Huawei Technologies Corporate Campus (Shanghai, China) - an environmentally sensitive campus design expressing a strong corporate identity by connecting a technologically advanced workplace with nature
• Burj Khalifa (Dubai, UAE) - the world's tallest building marries culturally influenced modern architecture with structural engineering in the same manner as Sears Tower and John Hancock.

Interior Design

• Global Law Firm Headquarters (Chicago, IL) - A highly adaptable employee-centric interiors created to attract and retain the world's top legal talent while servicing the changing needs of a world based client market. This space is Chicago's largest high-performance-design office.  
• Public Areas of the Residences at the Burj Khalifa (Dubai, UAE) - A design of amenity and social spaces in the world's tallest tower that features more than 500 pieces of local art, abstract use of Arabic calligraphy, and the World Voices installation by international artist Jaume Plensa who completed the Crown Fountain at Chicago's Millennium Park.
• Burj Khalifa, Level 153 (Dubai, UAE) – A three-story staircase, suspended from the ceiling frame at the 154th floor, serves as the organizing element of this high-profile event space atop the tallest building in the world.

Regional & Urban Design

• Guangzhou University Town – 4 Villages (Guangzhou, China) - Using the region's indigenous "Lingnan" heritage of traditional development patterns defined by natural systems and applied simultaneously at the village and urban scales in an area that had seen explosive growth of 10 universities surrounding four ancient farming villages.
• Panama Government City Master Plan (Panama) – The mixed-use plan marks a departure from over-scaled, monumental government centers of the past. It is transit oriented and integrated with the surrounding city. The nation's first light rail line and intermodal transit hub, along with a revitalization of the Curundu River into a community amenity and focal point of a citywide park system are plan highlights.
• A Vision for the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Region: Recognizing a Global Resource - SOM Chicago's ongoing three-year pro bono initiative that has been advocating in the U.S. and Canada for an optimistic 100-year vision to improve every aspect of life in the region. Using the graphic vocabulary of architecture and planning, this initiative has made a compelling case for regional solidarity and innovative action.

Unbuilt

• Takshing House Redevelopment (Hong Kong, China) – By creating a new paradigm for super-dense urban high-rise construction by lifting the building high above street level, daylight is brought to newly exposed historic facades and activate the pedestrian experience with retail. A "braided stream" concrete core lifts column-free office floors 90m above grade cantilevered off the core using tapered post-tensioned concrete girders.
• S-Tower (Seoul, South Korea) – By rethinking the supertall building as a commercial exploration of the outermost limits of structural and engineering systems design intelligently engages the natural environment.  The tower harnesses alternative energy vertical axis wind turbines and solar arrays and integrates a water recovery and conservation system, heat recovery, high performance facades, and efficient exterior shading using photovoltaic panels.

ABOUT AIA Chicago

Founded in 1869, AIA Chicago represents over 3,000 licensed architects, architectural interns and allied professionals in northeastern Illinois.  AIA Chicago is the second largest AIA chapter in the nation.

ABOUT SOM

Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP (SOM) is one of the leading architecture, urban planning, interior design, and engineering firms in the world, with a 75-year reputation for design excellence and a portfolio that includes some of the most important architectural accomplishments of the 20th and 21st centuries. Since its inception, SOM has been a leader in the research and development of specialized technologies, new processes and innovative ideas, many of which have had a palpable and lasting impact on the design profession and the physical environment. The firm's longstanding leadership in design and building technology has been honored with more than 1,400 awards for quality, innovation, and management. The American Institute of Architects has recognized SOM twice with its highest honor, the Architecture Firm Award—in 1962 and again in 1996. The firm maintains offices in Chicago, New York, San Francisco, Washington, D.C., London, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Mumbai and Abu Dhabi. For more information, please visit www.som.com.

SOURCE Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP