Trees are, of course, a renewable resource. But Texas is long past its days of building with just wood and clay. As our buildings get more complicated, and as we build at a much greater scale, it can take complex innovation to circumnavigate the sustainability issues coming up.
Some local architects are making real advances toward a new blueprint for sustainable building, and the The American Institute of Architects has rounded up 17 of them in its 2024 AIA Austin Design Awards, hosted at Austin PBS on May 15. These innovators were selected by three jurors (Los Angeles' Annie Chu, Berkeley, California's Jule Tsai, and Seattle's Casey Huang), drawing from a pool of 116 submissions.
Awards were given in three categories: excellence, merit, and special commendation. To explain their rulings, the jurors provided voiceovers accompanying short videos of each work — a surprisingly elegant and reverent touch to something that is often relegated to in-person events and summarized in bullet points.
One Award of Excellence-winning project, the Campsite at Shield Ranch by Andersson/Wise, was featured by CultureMap Austin when the team broke ground in 2021. The AIA video commends the project for being 100 percent off-grid and net zero — removing an equal amount of emissions to what it creates — while emphasizing the outdoors in all parts of the design.
A common feature of Campsite at Shield Ranch buildings is large open portals to the outdoors.Photo by Leonid Furmansky
“This gives [campers] an opportunity to really immerse themselves in the natural world,” said architect Arthur Andersson to CultureMap after the groundbreaking. “The programs of the camp have to do with ... looking and experiencing the natural world, and we wanted the structures to be a part of that whole dialogue. It’s a neat way to think about living.”
Some buildings are likely a more familiar part of Austinites' routines. Comedor (McKinney York Architects and Olson Kundig), Uchiko (Michael Hsu Office of Architecture), and the entirety of the Music Lane development on South Congress (Lake|Flato) all won Awards of Merit in the commercial space. Some, like this minimalist house at Barton Hills (Alterstudio Architecture) are residences.
Music Lane was one of the most recognizable winning projects.Photo by Peter Molick
Two of the projects won Community Impact Awards, announced by Max Lars, senior policy advisor to Austin Mayor Kirk Watson. These projects benefitted Austinites and were built with public funding. (Some school facilities also won awards, but were not part of the community impact category.)
The first was the Travis County Probate Courts by Lord Aeck Sargent and Limbacher & Godfrey Architects, which was a restoration project recognized for updating a building from 1936. The other was Zilker Studios by Forge Craft Architecture and Design, which worked on a tight budget to provide stylish and efficient affordable housing.
Zilker Studios made affordable housing beautiful.Photo by Casey Dunn
“Austin’s architects are some of the best in the country in creatively adapting to changing climate needs,” said AIA Austin executive director Ingrid Spencer in a release announcing the winners. “The jurors were particularly impressed by the beauty and functionality our winners were able to accomplish within all manner of constraints. We’re awed by the ingenuity of these projects and the teams that created them.”
More information about each winner is available at aiaaustin.org.
