[Full and absurdly lengthy disclosure- Mark Baker is my friend. I find it hard to be objective about Mark Baker. This blog post is not, in my opinion, a shameless plug for Baker Architecture and Design, for the primary and totally illogical reason that my interest in architecture far precedes-- as a result of happening upon this while out for a country drive Junior year in high school-- my relationship with Mark, and this blog post comes from a (mostly) pure love of Albuquerque and to highlight a great building that has been built in town, and better yet, built for the public good in a really cool, historic part of town.]

...not to mention architects are already megalomaniacal enough without any help from blog hack like myself...

I’m not sure why the AIA Albuquerque isn’t updating their website, but there are some newly minted architecture award winners in our midst. Actually, there are a number of them, some familiar names; Antoine Predock, Rohde May Keller McNamara, and Jon Anderson are all perennial favorites when the New Mexico "branch" of the American Institute of Architects bestows its annual Design Awards.

Most of the aforementioned design firms are so renowned in fact, that they realize numerous projects located outside of town. Last year, only one of the six recipients, Mullen Heller Architects, won the award for an Albuquerque building. One of the top awards last year, the "Honor Award" went to Predock for his design of Austin (TX) City Hall.

This year was no different. Only three of the nine award winners were for buildings in ‘Burque . There were 64 entrants, whose projects were presented to a panel of judges, including these luminaries- John Carney as chairman, Richard Frenau, FAIA and Lori Ryker, AIA.

Among the nine award winners this year, at the top secret awards banquet (which I think took place after this banquet, which is inexplicably still being featured prominently on the site—also, see above quasi-snarky comment regarding the same topic) was one of “DCF’s own”- Mark Baker, of Baker Architecture & Design, who took home a prize in the “Merit Award” category. You might recall this recent post, wherein the mastermind behind this group, and this one, implored us all to “vote” for him in an online contest to determine the best use of 3-Form, a design material from the moon. Somewhat tangentially, I like to think that Mark’s highlighting of the need for crosswalks in Nob Hill led to the success that is supposed to be realized soon. (In order to alleviate the unintentional and annoying obtuseness I’ll direct you to this (and this) awesome reporting by none other than Johnny Mango.)

Baker Architecture and Design took the prize for a new building at Duranes Elementary that is now part of the landscape at the primary school in our fair burg's 2nd oldest neighborhood, “Duranes Elementary School was first built in 1919 in Albuquerque’s second oldest neighborhood. Only Old Town pre-existed the Duranes community.”

A brief description of the project is offered: “10,000 square foot structure, which replaced seven portables, houses three kindergarten classrooms, two first grade classrooms, and an art and music room for use by the entire student population. Its many sustainable features include superior thermal insulation; energy efficient radiant base board heating; fresh air supply and air exchanges; passive solar lighting in all rooms plus multiple lighting levels
to work in harmony with natural day-lighting; low water use plumbing fixtures; and one central evaporative cooling system atypical for a building of this size.”

Further PR-type speak relates that additional green amenities include rainwater harvesting with an underground cistern that provides water for the campus garden, and xeric landscaping consisting of only indigenous plants and shade trees. Other environmental quality attributes include noise control roof and ceiling panels for superior acoustics, and the use of only healthy materials that do not emit harmful gasses.

I like to think the pictures speak for themselves.

Oh yeah, and the other two winners for projects in Albuquerque this year were these:

Jon Anderson Architects

and

Mullen Heller Architecture (They also won the award in 2008 for this same building, so I am unsure as to what sort of update to the project has been done to result in another award- maybe an addition to the original one or it was a second building altogether, I dunno…)

And just to put a fine point on it, I discovered more Johnny Mango synergy whilst conducting research for my post-- I came across a nice partial visual that could provide counterpoint and further discussion of this comment by esteemed DCF denizen slamwagon, from Johnny Mango’s awesome writing yesterday. Not to mention that one of the “out of town” AIA Albuquerque award winners this year was the Ruidoso Fire Station. But for the most part, Fire Stations are just boxes attached to boxes, and almost entirely unremarkable. Some I have seen (i'm talking to you, Bernalillo County) appear to be pre-fab metal buildings. Oh well, can't win (the AIA New Mexico Design Award) 'em all, huh?

I almost forgot, to further extend this blogospheric paean to Mark Baker, I really should ask, tennis anyone? (He's also a "Ning"-meister with his own really cool community blog with over 22,000 members.)