AIA HV AWARDS 2022

“

Stated brief ly, my philosophy of architecture is that a man-made human environment should be much more than mere utilitarian space in which one can move about conveniently to perform the routine tasks of living. And the materials with which we define and enclose space should do more than control the temperature and keep out the rain. Materials should not only define and enclose space, they should also create the feeling or quality of the space.

Materials and space must stimulate the imagination, must create a feeling of well-being, must make living more delightful, and must arouse desire to continue the creative effort of the architect.

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–George B. Brigham, Jr., 1958

Awards 2022

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Table of Contents 04 American Institute of Architects Huron Valley chapter Board of Directors & Editorial Board 05 President's Letter 06 George Bickford Brigham, Jr. Architect and inventor of the ann arbor mid-century modern house

By Jeffrey Welch

26 "Unconventional Convention"

The Ann Arbor Conferences, 1940-1954

By Deirdre L.C. Hennebury

36 Community Engagement 62 Awards 2022 Submissions 78 Awards 2022 Winners 92 Sponsors & Members

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AIA Huron Valley Board of Directors 2021 President

Vice President & President Elect

Past President

Secretary

Treasurer

AIA Michigan Director

Continuing Education Director

U of M TCAUP Director

Emerging Professionals Director

Media Director

Anna Anderson, AIA Donald Barry JD, AIA Kevin Adkins, AIA Theresa Angelini, AIA

Jason Ennis, Associate AIA

Anne Cox, AIA

Kelsey Montgomery, AIA Damian Farrell, FAIA Sharon Haar, FAIA Cara Mitchell, AIA

AIAS Representative Tiannuo Ouyang

Awards 2022 Editorial Board Managing Editor

Production Manager

Editorial Director

Design Director

Bradford Angelini Martin Schwartz

Kelsey Montgomery David Shellabarger

Jurors—AIA Toledo Ed Glowacki, AIA Emeritus Erin Curley, AIA

Andy Knopp, AIA

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Letter from the President Greetings, On behalf of the 2021 Board of directors of the Huron Valley Chapter of the American Institute of Architects, we are pleased to present the fifth edition of our annual AWARDS publication. This publication was originally developed in 2017 and successfully continues to document and celebrate architecture within communities and beyond. In particular, this year the board is excited to highlight the environmental and social issues this chapter’s members are currently addressing through meaningful architecture and design.

In this year’s publication you will find exceptional achievements in residential and commercial design. Projects were considered for awards in conventional categories for new construction or renovation. Commercial, residential, interior architecture, and unbuilt projects were all considered for Sustainable Design Award. In addition to the usual categories, we continue to expand our recognition to include the subcategory of Aspirational Projects respecting such of issues as climate change, equity and inclusion and community benefit.

We continue to offer an educational component. The first article is written by Jeffrey Welch on George Brigham. The article defines Brigham as a catalyst for many of the local mid-century modernists that started in his office and went on to have successful careers.

The author of the second article is Deirdre Hennebury, Associate Director of the University of Michigan Museum Studies Program and the Co-chair of the Albert Kahn Research Coalition. Deirdre is writing about architectural conferences that happened in Ann Arbor in the 1940’s and early 50's.

We have added a segment highlighting design and photography challenges. This issue presents the winners and submissions of AIA Huron Valley first Photography Contest ’One Story in One Photo’ and ‘The Alleyway project: Activating Ann Arbor’s Alleys through Art’.

This open design challenge is the first initiative of The Ann Arbor Art Center Alleys, the newest public art, architecture, and design exhibit that focuses on the overlooked pedestrian spaces in the alleyways between city buildings.

Lastly, I would like to recognize the continuing contributions of Kelsey Montgomery, Martin Schwartz, and Brad Angelini to this series of AWARDS publications. With their creativity, persistence and devotion this volume became possible to achieve.

Sincerely,

Anna Anderson 2021 Chapter President, AIA Huron Valley

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George Bickford Brigham, Jr. Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan

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George Bickford Brigham, Jr. Architect and inventor of the Ann Arbor Mid-Century Modern House Jeffrey Welch University of Michigan Professor of Architecture, George B. Brigham, Jr., turned 56 in 1945. In this significant year, his wartime research had led to the construction of a prefabricated, demountable, seven-unit dwelling with a flat roof.1 There could not be a simpler or more naked little building than this rectilinear house with carport, set beside the Engineering Research building on the central campus. Yet for George Brigham it was a distinct departure from his previous practice and a hardheaded rationalizing of basic ideas about materials, interior design and architectural construction. In this research he had been responding to the needs of war, as well as planning for the post-war era to come. His little building could be expanded in units of 8' x 16', it could be put together and then taken apart easily with a minimum of loss, and it could be moved from one location to another by truck on normal roads.

Government funded research gave him the opportunity to try out new, possibly patentable designs. The byproduct was an intense analysis of interior arrangements for comfort, use and movement. In July 1945 this model house was moved to a site just outside Ann Arbor city limits on the Pontiac Trail, and, serendipitously,

it is still there, still standing and unaltered to this day!

Over the previous 20 years, George Brigham had been a practicing architect, starting out in Southern California, and then in Ann Arbor after joining the Michigan faculty in 1930. He obtained his license to practice in Michigan in 1935. His houses in California echoed the dominant Spanish Colonial style and they combined architectural styles, in keeping with accepted practice. But dissatisfaction with his own house, built in Pasadena in 1926--he adapted English Gothic to Spanish Colonial--led to his eventual rejection of "the dance of the styles."2 In Ann Arbor in 1936, he designed a radically new kind of residence for Dr. Walter Badger, formerly a UM professor of engineering who had become a vice president at Dow Chemical Company. The Badger House reflected the influence of the "International Style" of architecture, a term coined for the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) exhibition of modern European architecture in 1932. The International Style implied quite identifiable elements: lots of glass, openness, white exterior walls, a flat roof. His use of these modernist architectural

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George Bickford Brigham, Jr.

youtz unit house, U of M campus, 1944 Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan

youtz unit house, present day Jeffrey Welch

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badger house, 1936 Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan

elements in the Badger House showed an awareness of recent work by Richard Neutra, the noted Austrian emigre practicing in Southern California since 1923.

Neutra's Lovell House (1929) produced an instant sensation, and it was featured in the MoMA exhibition. 3 The Badger House employed all these modernist elements but on a much less grand scale, and it embodied a declaration of independence both for the architect and for his client.

Located on a generous and secluded riverside site, this house defined itself against its site and setting, and against all previous Ann Arbor architectural practice. Soon after, however, Brigham retreated from this stance of radical purity, in favor of designs that acknowledged the presence of the neighbors and of the landscape.

Richard Neutra visited Ann Arbor in 1931 in the course of a world lecture tour. His message encouraged architects to forsake traditional practice by engaging in a creative search for the new style now coming into being. Since past styles, in their time, were steppingstones to the present, modern architects should be looking to the future: "All the historical style creators have been sincere in their work and if one is to follow in their examples he must be also."4 A vital architecture should respond to the modern world, to the brand-new practical and aesthetic consequences of technological innovation. As an example, he pointed to the rich color combinations produced by popular neon signage across America.

Now they presented a wholly new challenge to young designers.

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Brigham with Students, 1940 Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan

The appointment acknowledged Brigham's interest in the design and construction of small houses.

Certainly, it coincided with his development of a new course for senior and advanced students for the spring term of 1939. "Architectural Design and Building Clinic," as it was called, offered students an In 1940, the Michigan State Planning opportunity to gain professional Commission appointed Wells experience by working together with Bennett, Dean of the College of clients to design small buildings for Architecture, and George Brigham to domestic use. It was an answer to a committee to study tourist camps. the dearth of available internships The chairman of this committee, in architectural firms, which architect Kenneth Black, a UM traditionally provided exposure to graduate practicing in Lansing, the professional work environment. noted that in some states, new This practical, hands-on approach tourist camps with tiled baths, stall also echoed laboratory work showers, inner spring mattresses, required of advanced students and room service, costing as much in other disciplines. In addition as $350,000, were now being built to providing designs for clients, to take advantage of what had students in this course were asked become a $300,000,000 business.5 Neutra's message only confirmed the search for a contemporary style that Brigham had been pursuing since his student days at MIT, his stint teaching at the California Institute of Technology, and his work on architectural projects in Southern California and Michigan.

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to design and build models at 1/4 full size, mix concrete, and lay bricks and blocks. By 1944, students in the architectural clinic were designing non-commercial buildings valued at upwards of $6,000.6

Brigham to fabricate and assemble the elements.7

This research occasioned an everwidening series of new questions.

Soon, Brigham expanded his vision to include the production of eight Brigham's interest in small buildings different building sizes. In its next led him to bring two war-time reincarnation, the three-unit group research projects to the campus in was dismantled and relocated October 1943. These were the first beside the University of Michigan architectural research programs Engineering Research Building, to be established at a university in where four more units with parts the country. One project sought to manufactured in factories in Detroit perfect an existing design by Philip and Grand Rapids were added to Youtz, for a small, prefabricated, the extant three. Completed in demountable house, designated by November 19448 , the seven-unit Brigham as the "Youtz Unit House." house was ready for the 2nd Ann The second project focused on Arbor Conference on Architectural "The Brigham Building System," Design and Practice, February 3-4, specifically on the design for an 1945. Like the first one, the second insulated, prefabricated plywood wall conference drew key academic and panel, sturdy enough to withstand government leaders to Ann Arbor, high winds, small enough to be including Joseph Hudnut, Dean of handleable by one person, and large the Graduate School of Design at enough to be economical. Research Harvard; George Howe, architect funding came from the Consumer in charge of the Public Building Products Branch of the Office of Administration in Washington, Production Research & Development D. C.; and William Wurster, noted of the War Production Board. As it California architect and Dean of the happened, Philip Youtz supervised School of Architecture and Planning this office. On average, four or five at MIT. Brigham presented the research projects were allotted to results of his research in his paper, each of the states: in Michigan, “Prefabrication.”9 He summarized Brigham was working on two of research work leading to the sevenfour government funded projects in unit model house, and, in his quiet the state. Within a very short time, way, called for the wholesale reform Youtz was praising Brigham for his of standardized building products. A imaginative modifications to the module of 3' 4" to 3' 6"—rather than Youtz Unit House and urging him to the traditional 4' module—better build a full-scale model of a "unit" in accommodated standard-size doors, the laboratory. When this single unit windows, passageways and the width was moved outdoors to a site on level of bathrooms. The new module would ground, two new units were added greatly reduce the need for handonto it, creating a fuller space and finishing work at the building site. requiring a floor designed to allow Brigham continued his research for a heating system. Architecture after the war-time contracts ended students and several department in October 1945. Funding for colleagues worked together with

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George Bickford Brigham, Jr.

ongoing research was provided by commercial sources. By 1947, the proposed plan to build eight different sizes of the Youtz Unit House had grown into a plan for a subdivision of thirty-four houses. The new idea proposed using houses of different configurations: half of them would be built using conventional methods of construction and half using the Brigham Building System with prefabricated parts. Altogether, he wanted a wide variety of houses to be used as experimental spaces by residents who would live in a unit for a time and then play musical chairs.

This proposal appeared in the report: Proposed Housing Research on Effects of Space Arrangement and Material on Housework.10 Dean Bennett's name on the report's cover conveyed university support for the proposal, while the content of the report came straight from Brigham's studio, including the text, his drawings of the different interior configurations for the houses, and the vision for a large, experimental community of cooperating householders. The report specified that the Huron View subdivision should be used. Located west of Pontiac Trail and just north of the Huron River, this land had been platted in relatively small lots. As yet it remained wholly undeveloped.

In league with this plan, the seven units of the Youtz Unit House model were disjoined, trucked out to, and reassembled on a small lot close by the Huron View area. Having purchased this building from the government for $1,000, Brigham paid $1,000 to finish the house, arranged for moving it, and added two units, at $500 each. It was purchased by an enthusiastic young couple for $5,500.

The idea of developing an entire subdivision of well-built experimental houses was not so far-fetched. In 1947, there was an acute need to accommodate the influx of new students after the war, often with their families in tow. For example, university students living in crowded temporary housing at Willow Village, 15 miles away, had to be bussed into school each day.

The idea of providing a nearby subdivision of small, inexpensive, easy-to-construct houses, which could also be demounted and moved off the site when required, was, in actuality, a practical answer to lingering post-war housing needs in Ann Arbor. Furthermore, a local man, Charles Irvin, an officer at the Ann Arbor Federal Savings and Loan, who was also a member of the American Institute of Real Estate Appraisers, declared the unit house not only mortgageable but also a solid investment. At one point, Irvin negotiated with Brigham regarding the rights to build a series of unit houses in northern Michigan.

Also, by 1947, the next phase of architectural research at the university was taking shape, on behalf of the Unistrut company of nearby Wayne, Michigan.

Unistrut's owner, Charles Attwood, Class of 1917, attended the June reunion meeting of architecture alumni in which a call came for a research project for the College of Architecture.11 Attwood's company needed the exposure, and the university offered an interface between the construction industry and Unistrut's fabrication of metal trusses and parts for industrial and residential uses. Post-war hiring needs accommodated this plan.

Starting in 1946, the College of

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Architecture brought in new faculty to handle increased enrollment.

For guidance in this process, Dean Bennett convened a special committee to advise on strategic hiring, particularly for leadership positions in his department. At George Brigham's behest, Dean Bennett invited Philip Youtz to consider taking on the architectural research program at the university.

Youtz had recently started up his own architecture firm in New York, however, and his cordial welcome to the campus notwithstanding,

he declined the offer. Among those recommended by the committee were Walter Sanders and C. Theodore Larson, both instrumental in the new research program. In a few years, both men had designed homes for themselves, using Unistrut parts.12 In 1955 a Unistrutframed research building rose into being, its spidery trusswork providing a sharp contrast to the brick and limestone masonry of Lorch Hall, then the home of the College of Architecture. These different buildings, set side-by-side, reflected

Unit house Sketches, 1944 Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan

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Brigham house, 1941 Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan

emerging ideological differences dividing traditionalists and modernists in the College of Architecture and Design at mid-century.

the design of individual buildings.

They were not building "machines for living" but rather human-oriented structures that shaped "the temper of human lives" through the agency of At mid-century, the study and the architect-designed environment: practice of architecture faced a "that silent environment of the reckoning, as the new modernist spirit, that man-made supplement ideas contested with more widely to Nature which, as we know, has held traditional approaches. moulded man and his destiny on European modernists celebrated the earth." Harvard Dean Joseph Hudnut machine as the appropriate metaphor held forth in this way at the Ann for the new age. This meant paring Arbor Conference in 1945, using the away all extraneous ornament, conference to clarify this difference creating open and unadorned between American and European interior spaces, and designing modernists.13 Because Cranbrook Art volumes rather than masses. More Academy President, Eliel Saarinen, traditional American modernists, was located very close to Ann Arbor, however, already familiar with the his eminence via his celebrated assembly line and more sensitive to architectural projects, both built and the impersonality of the machine, unbuilt, provided a firm example of resisted a machine aesthetic. In their the very best humanist work that eyes, the architect should aspire American modernist architects to be a "master builder" intent on could bring into being.14 Brigham bringing spiritual sustenance to the fully understood these contending design of whole cities as well as to

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positions. His designs reflected a perfect awareness of prevailing influences in American practice: Frank Lloyd Wright's early Chicago School, and Usonian manifestations; Eliel Saarinen's Arts and Crafts sensitivity to material, color and craftsmanship; and the white surfaces, proud verticality and austere interiors of the International Style. At this time, Mies van der Rohe was just beginning to tighten his hegemonic grip on modern ideas and practice, but even here Brigham's research into the design of prefabricated houses had him already grappling, in a fundamental way, with the Miesian concept, "less is more."

The kitchen as command center necessitated an easily accessible play place for the children close by on the same floor and the same held for clothes washing and the other housekeeping activities. There was no reason to have to go up or down stairs to accomplish these simple repetitive tasks. A second consideration involved attractive building sites. Because many of the best remaining Ann Arbor lots rose upward on gentle hills (because the streets were put through on the lowest, most level areas) this two-level solution (car below, family above) provided an excellent suburban answer in these new automobile-oriented neighborhoods.

His Whitaker House ignored the Like most architects at mid-career, street entirely. Its large windows George Brigham embodied a mixture looked out over the roofs of other of traditional and modernist values. houses, thus offering a leafy view, Even by 1940 he had discarded privacy for the homeowner, and a the look of the International Style. penthouse feel.

Vertical cinderblock walls painted white were traded in for more In 1951, the White House at 819 natural materials, like exterior Avon Road added a new dimension dark wood siding and brick, and to the two-level plan. This house a friendlier relationship with the was arrayed on a ridge, its central natural setting. His own house at 517 projecting block two stories high.

Oxford Road projected a bungalow On the lower level, a garage faced look, in spite of its central two-story the street, offering a simple, direct block. But starting in 1948 his new access to the street, while alongside houses, for example the Whitaker the garage a rising stairway to the House at 406 Lenawee, showed main entrance gently retreated to evidence of a new direction. By a hardly visible front door. At the arranging a ribbon of large windows Whitaker House, the steep stairway on the second floor, he was able to down to the road set a very similar move the living/entertaining space challenge to arrive at a hidden front up above the carport, utility and door. Both these entrances were recreation rooms, onto a horizontal like barriers, separating the private plane. His unit house research, house from the public street. In involving considerations of interior addition, at the White House, the arrangements, and the wall and room above the garage functioned as floor surfaces exposed to daily wear Professor White's largely windowless and tear, had led him to advocate study. Brigham positioned the for single-level living spaces for central kitchen/dining room area the convenience of the housewife. behind the study. On the left, a north

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Whitaker house, Present Day Jeffrey Welch

Whitaker House Plan Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan

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White house, 1950 Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan

wing, set back on the ridge, housed a bedroom area with its corresponding smaller windows. To the right, the solid brick wall shielded a substantial living room/entertaining space.

Narrow clerestory windows lined the top of this brick wall for ultimate privacy. Probably both clients asked for designs that turned away from the street, but the single wraparound window in Professor White's study and the gently rising staircase to the upper-level front door suggested an uneasy acknowledgment of a social obligation to the street. With his next project, the Furstenberg House on nearby Belmont Road, Brigham resolved this question.

With the Furstenberg House (1952), Brigham's mid-century modern house form arrived at full maturity. This was evident in its harmonious synthesis of elements: the low horizontal roofline; two-story arrangement of garage below and

living space above; and a welcoming entrance on the lower level. The house addressed the street with a shallow second floor deck, its railing softening the effect of the large Thermopane windows in the facade. While the design of the house invited scrutiny, its roof eaves and the recessed entrance area beside the garage assured a modicum of privacy from the public gaze. The influence of the International Style in the vertical elevation was rendered informal by means of a sleek Wrightian horizontality. Attention to details of wood and masonry inside and outside the house reflected an Arts and Crafts delight in materials and craftsmanship. Lastly, the architect had worked together with the client to tailor the design to meet family desires, in particular as a site for entertaining. All the newest architectural and technological features, such as the built-in stereo

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George Bickford Brigham, Jr.

Furstenburg House, 1952 Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan

system and television set, graced this ultra-modern, post-war American home.15 In 1950, Brigham designed the house for Dr. Albert C. Furstenberg, the long-time dean of the medical school, and Elizabeth, his wife.

Up to that time, the Furstenbergs had been living in a charming but secluded English manor style house at the west end of Geddes Heights.

The move from the Arboretum to Belmont Road in Ann Arbor Hills signaled a radical transformation for the family, both in public exposure and accessibility for visitors and guests. Their Belmont house was being built at the same time as the Frank Lloyd Wright Palmer House on Orchard Ridge Road, both houses using the same heating system of hot water circulating through pipes in the concrete floor. Certainly, Ann Arbor residents had an attractive

menu of modern residential design choices available to them. The review in the Ann Arbor News identified the Furstenberg House this way: "Ann Arbor Home Reaches Pinnacle of Modern Living: Large Slope of the Land Aids Building." The word "pinnacle" did not overstate the case. This house set the standard for Ann Arbor MCM houses for the next twenty years.

This stretch of Belmont Road could be considered ground zero for mid-century modern houses in Ann Arbor, given the fact that three other important houses went up at roughly the same time. On the east side, Walter Sanders designed a house for Oscar Eberbach, a successful businessman and city patriarch, the latest in a long line of Eberbachs. Next door to the west, Dr. Sibley Hoobler commissioned a house designed by Alden Dow, the

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Furstenburg House Plans Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan

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Crane house by Robert Metcalf, Present Day Jeffrey Welch

Midland architect responsible for a Frank Lloyd Wright style house built in 1932 for his sister, Margaret, and her husband, Dr. Harry Towsley.

(Dr. Towsley had recommended Alden Dow to Dr. Hoobler.) Across the street, Priscilla Neel, wife of the distinguished geneticist, James V. G. Neel, designed a modern house for her family. Neel studied with Walter Gropius at Harvard's Graduate School of Design in 1942. Here were four brand-new mid-century modern houses clustered on a single block. Still, Brigham's Furstenberg House set the standard for Ann Arbor mid-century modern house design. Proof of this claim does not depend on a comparison with the other Belmont homes, nor with the handful of other mid-century modern houses designed by Thomas Tanner, Richard Robinson and Charles Lane, that were built as of 1952. The proof was embodied in the Crane House at 830 Avon Road.

The Cranes had, at first, approached George Brigham for their new home.

They had been living in a Brigham house at 1701 Hermitage Road since 1939. In the midst of planning a sabbatical leave, however, Brigham quite naturally recommended Robert Metcalf, a young, newly licensed architect just starting up his practice. Metcalf had attracted considerable attention with his own single-story modern house on nearby Arlington Boulevard.16 Furthermore, Brigham and Metcalf had been working together since 1948, so Metcalf would be well equipped to take on a project of this scale. The Furstenberg House provided the model for this new project. The siting of this house on a rising slope, its direct address to the street, the span of large windows across the second level, the central atrium (with its interior stairway) dividing the east and the west sides, a projecting deck

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off the living room, the garage/utility room/office area for the famous physicist all on the ground level, the children's rooms at the east end far from the master bedroom, a private patio area behind the house—all these features were designed into this instantly influential Ann Arbor mid-century modern building.

Metcalf would have suggested the lighter color of the brick, while the brickwork screen to the right of the atrium provided a classic Brigham touch. The Cranes moved into their new house in 1954.

near the street, affording residents an opportunity for social interaction.

All in all, it was a perfectly calculated enterprise for the contractor and for the clients.18 It was also a sign that development would continue eastward along Hill Street and Geddes Avenue. In fact, just a little farther along Geddes Road, the Sanders family was deciding whether to sell undeveloped land they had been using for gardening.

Brigham was long familiar with this piece of property just off Geddes Avenue at Highland Road, but it was Between 1954 and retirement from radiologist Dr. Fred Hodges, on the teaching in 1960, Brigham's work lookout for a site for a new home, took yet another new direction. For who initiated the train of events two major commissions he designed leading to their partnership. Behind houses using curving and circular the scenes, real estate operator T. forms. This freedom in architectural R. Peirsol knew the Sanders family expression can be linked directly well; it was through him that Hodges to his new role as real estate and Brigham paid $13,500 for the entrepreneur. Every sign pointed to parcel soon to be developed into continued demand for custom homes. their Highland Lane subdivision.

For example, all 161 lots in the Ann Five lots were platted and put up for Arbor Hills subdivision were sold by sale at $8,000 apiece. Subsequently, 1949, leading to the dissolution of the Brigham designed three of the four Ann Arbor Hills Corporation after 27 houses in this subdivision: for the Hodges family (1956) across two of years in business.17 Then there was the startling denouement for Ruthven the lots, for Charles Sawyer (1958), Place, a cul-de-sac, one street west of and for William Kennedy (1960).19 Oswego Street (where Brigham had In his designs for the Hodges and built a duplex in the International Kennedy homes, Brigham used very Style in 1937). Ruthven Place was "unmodern" curves. Client wishes the brainchild of contractor John superseded the by now orthodox R. McMullen, who had purchased a long narrow lot from the Delta Kappa tropes of modern design, like wraparound windows, flat roofs Epsilon fraternity in order to build eight three-bedroom houses (each to and rectilinear shapes. Brigham passed beyond adhering to the include a full basement, an attached classic modernist look. He had garage, and a sidewalk). All eight adjusted to a purer expression of houses were built and sold within a modernism, in which the "look" of year. Intended for emeritus faculty, buildings was less important than Ruthven Place was located close to the ruthless reduction of waste in the campus and to the Arboretum, its lots were modest but not cramped, the use of materials and in methods of construction. This hard-won and the houses were set relatively

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Kennedy House Swimming Pool Dome Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan

principle came from his hands-on research in prefabrication over a period of almost twenty years. 20 The Kennedy house presented a real departure for Brigham. At his client's request, he designed a swimming pool within a circular patio, and then built the living areas of the house around it. His signature achievement on this project was the dome over the pool and patio, designed to keep the temperature at a constant 75 degrees for winter poolside sunbathing. A network of light aluminum ribs formed panes designed to hold a double layer of Mylar. Forced air turned the Mylar panels into translucent plastic pillows that moderated the temperature below and carried away moisture.

Brigham retired from the College of Architecture and Design in 1959, retained a "furlough" status

as a consultant for an additional year, and was designated emeritus professor of architecture in 1960.

Retirement brought more ease. He designed five houses in 1958, one in 1959 and two in 1960. He would occasionally undertake projects like a swimming pool building or a porch enclosure. It soon became clearer, however, where some of his energy was going. Together with designer John Taylor, he was feted for developing a folding shelter called the Paradome. Manufactured

by Outdoor Fibre Products, Inc., of Chelsea, the Paradome was named product of the year by the State of Michigan in 1963. 21 This was a perfectly realized prefabricated object. The twelve-section wall unit made of 3/8" polyurethane had vinyl hinges every 3'. The roof and f loor were made of reinforced plastic.

Twelve aluminum rods radiated

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Advertisement for Paradrome Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan

from the center like a parasol and firmly secured the transparent roof panels. There were no interior posts or braces in this rigid shelter, which came with two screened windows and a screen door. Additional units could easily be attached. The whole affair fitted into a box measuring 3' x 6' x 9." Weighing in at 86 pounds, the Paradome could be carried to a remote site and erected in twenty minutes by two people.

In 1970, George B. Brigham, Jr., was made a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects, an honor awarded to 10 percent of its membership. The award celebrated his extended and original research in the area of prefabrication for government and private interests, his contributions as a teacher of architecture and his prolific and creative career as designer of residential projects. Perhaps it was also understood that largely through his designs and the ongoing productivity of his protege, Robert

Metcalf, that a delightful Ann Arbor-originated mid-century modern form had come into being.

Neither International Style nor Wrightian, this form synthesized these and other influences, including the painstaking research projects and extensive reflection on the arrangement of interior spaces.

It was a form tailored to respond to Ann Arbor clients, whether progressive university professors or forward-looking citizens of the town, and Ann Arbor's climate and topography. His houses also retained a modest scale (in light of contemporary residential projects), reflecting the designer's concern for function, economy, comfort and beauty. For almost twenty years after 1952, the community of Ann Arbor's architects was like a brotherhood, as talented practitioners, like David Osler, James Livingston, Richard Robinson, Thomas Tanner, Ted Smith, Herbert Johe and so many others, designed

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modern houses that respected their neighborhoods and cooperated with rather than clashed with the houses that came before. Even when houses did seek to be more independent, like the white Miesian Engel House (1963) by Edward Olencki on Overridge Road, or the white William Muschenheim House (1954) on Heather Way, the overall impact was collegial. Ann Arbor mid-century modern houses did not derive from an external source— neither California nor Chicago nor Boston; they were inspired in the studio of George Brigham and their geniality is the perfect expression of his character, the mid-western milieu in which he worked, and a ceaseless delight in creative experimentation. 

Notes 1. Michigan Daily July 11, 1945.

2. Ilma Brigham, "A Traditional Architect Goes Modern." George Brigham Papers, Bentley Historical Library, Box 2, "Biographical Information" file.

3. A photograph of the Lovell House appeared in the famous show at the Museum of Modern Art, titled "The International Style: Architecture Since 1922." In the book published concurrently with the show, Neutra's Lovell House was one of two contributions by American architects.

4. "Neutra Describes Modern Buildings," Michigan Daily, February 26, 1931, p. 2.

"Inferiority Complex Held to Mar Our Art: R. J. Neutra, Architect, Finds Us Hindered by Combating Europeans' Idea of Us," New York Times, January 5, 1931, p. 4. Brigham and Neutra were friends from California days. It was Brigham together with Emil Lorch who invited Neutra to speak at the university.

George Brigham Papers, Bentley Historical Library, Box 2, "Correspondence" file.

5. "Motor Courts Big Business: Forecast 300 Million Take in 1941," Detroit Sunday Times, August 25, 1940.

6. "Architectural Clinic Aids Students in Gaining Practical Experience," Michigan

Daily, December 5, 1940. "Veritable Gold Mine: Architectural Clinic Aids Future Home-Owners," Michigan Daily, February 20, 1944.

7. George Brigham Papers, Bentley Historical Library, Box 3, "Youtz" files.

8. "U of M Completes Fabricated House," Grand Rapids Press, November 18, 1944, p. 12.

9. Papers Presented at the Ann Arbor Conference on Architectural Design and Practice, University of Michigan, February 3 and 4, 1945. Ann Arbor, Michigan: College of Architecture and Design, 1945.

10. "Proposed Housing Research on Effects of Space Arrangement and Material on Housework." https://babel.hathitrust.org/ cgi/pt?id= mdp.39015031500799&view=1up& seq= 1&skin=2021 11. "Architectural Alumni, Reunion Meeting," Michigan Alumnus, v. 53, no.

23 (July 12, 1947), p. 452. "There was a considerable discussion about research and a resolution passed recommending that Dean Bennett take necessary steps to instigate some research program utilizing faculty personnel for such work with student assistance."

12. "Engineers Devise 'Erector School'," Ann Arbor News, December 16, 1951. "U-M Experiment on Schoolhouses Leads to Home," Ann Arbor News, October 3, 1953. The Sanders House. "Home on Huron River Bank Built with Nuts and Bolts," Ann Arbor News, January 22, 1955. The Larson House.

13. Joseph Hudnut, Papers Presented at the Ann Arbor Conference on Architectural Design and Practice, 1945, p. 8. Hudnut brought Walter Gropius from Germany to America in 1937, instantly putting his program at the Harvard Graduate School of Design at the forefront of modernism in the United States. By 1945, however, the two men were estranged by esthetic and programmatic differences.

14. Eliel Saarinen proved himself more American than all other (competing) American architects in two instances: first, by his second-place entry for the Chicago Tribune Tower competition in 1922, and second, by his winning entry in the Smithsonian Art Gallery competition in 1939. Though neither design was built, both the drawing for the skyscraper and the model for the art gallery were enormously influential. Dean Hudnut kept the model for the Smithsonian Art Gallery on display in Robinson Hall at Harvard from 1940 to 1945.

Welch 15. "Ann Arbor Home Reaches Pinnacle of Modern Living," Ann Arbor News, November 8, 1952, p. 8.

16. Ann Schriber, "Mentor's sabbatical launched career," Ann Arbor News, May 30, 1998.

17. "Ann Arbor Hills Co. Closes Its Books: All Property Sold," Ann Arbor News, September 24, 1949. Organized in 1922, the company offered 161 lots east of Arlington Boulevard for sale.

18. "Project Completed at End of First Year of Building: Ruthven Place Now Completed and Occupied: 8 Completed and Occupied Homes," Ann Arbor News, November 1, 1952.

19. George Brigham Papers, Bentley Historical Library, Box 2, "Hodges" file.

"Semi-Circle Home Encompasses Functional Features," Ann Arbor News, June 15, 1957.

See the Kennedy House file, George Brigham Papers, Bentley Historical Library, Box 1.

20. See "An Interview" conducted by a student for The Michigan Journal (laboratory newspaper of U-M Department of Journalism) 1957. In the interview, referring to curves in architecture, Brigham said that different architectural shapes "did not mean a rejection but a sign of attention to needs." Mary Hunt, "George Brigham, Ann Arbor's First 'Modern' Architect," Ann Arbor

Journal, August 1974, p. 6. Robert Metcalf, reflecting on his mentor, said of Brigham, "every house was an experiment." He was always looking "for a new way of building."

George Brigham Papers, Bentley Historical Library, Box 3, "Speeches and Presentations" files. University of Michigan Professor of Architecture, Claire Zimmerman, writes about this aspect of American modernism in her article, "Albert Kahn in the Second Industrial Revolution," AA Files, No. 75 (2017), pp. 28-44. She distinguished American modernism from European modernism by showing that European modernists privileged the "look" of modern buildings while American modernist architect, Albert Kahn, in his search for efficiencies rather than a definitive form, expressed the purer spirit of American modernism. "Spurred by the pace of work in Detroit, AKA [Albert Kahn Associates] continually improved output and efficiency to serve both the client's and firm's own ends. [the look of] Any single building was subject to revision in the next of its kind; no work stood as the 'final word' on anything." (p. 37) Zimmerman's analysis explains why Albert Kahn was not and could not be included in the twentieth-century modernist canon.

21. "Folding Shelter Wins: 'Paradome,' Produced by Chelsea Firm, Chosen State's Product of the Year," Grand Rapids Press, May 12, 1963, p. 11.

Jeffrey Welch All Rights Reserved August 13, 2021

About the Author Recently retired to Ann Arbor, Jeffrey Welch was a teacher at Cranbrook Kingswood School in Bloomfield Hills, MI, for almost forty years. The incomparable architectural atmosphere at Cranbrook and living in and working in buildings designed by Eliel Saarinen have led to a book on the founding and history of Cranbrook. A graduate of Harvard College in 1971, he received a Ph. D. in English from the University of Michigan in 1978. His ongoing research now includes the career of Emil Lorch, the first head of the University of Michigan school of architecture, and topics related to Midcentury Modern architects and architecture in Michigan.

Image Credit: Kevin Adkisson

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“Unconventional Convention” The Ann Arbor Conferences, 1940-1954 Deirdre L.C. Hennebury In his letter to Wells Bennett, dean of the College of Architecture and Design at the University of Michigan, dated April 16, 1940, Walter Gropius confirmed that he had “arranged to supervise the work of your three graduates…on the Booth Competition.” 1 The letter, printed on Harvard University letterhead, appropriate given that Gropius was the chairman of the Department of Architecture at the time, was in response to an earlier note sent that same month from Bennett in which we can assume the advising role had been suggested. 2

and illustrious example of this trend.

Finally, the communications come a mere two months after the first “Ann Arbor Conference” convened at the University of Michigan on February 2 and 3, 1940. This final point ties together the first two—the arrival of European architects and the changing leadership of architectural education in the United States—and reveals that these two academics, Bennett and Gropius, conversed at a design education conference in Ann Arbor.

The Ann Arbor Conferences are largely absent from mid-century design literature. So, it is quite While it is not wholly surprising that astonishing in initial research forays to find that the first Conference in the chairman of the Department of Architecture at Harvard University 1940 was attended by such luminaries as Walter Gropius, László Moholywould be writing to the dean of the Nagy, Mies van der Rohe, and Antonin College of Architecture and Design Raymond.3 Additional attendees at the University of Michigan (UM), included Eliel and Eero Saarinen, the timing of the letter is notable James Marston Fitch, Joseph Hudnut, for several reasons. First, both Albert Kahn, Alden B. Dow, and Bennett and Gropius were new to “other representatives from the their roles, each having started in their respective leadership positions Museum of Modern Art, Architectural Forum, and significant schools of in 1938. Secondly, the exchange architecture of both modernist and of written letters falls during a Beaux Arts proclivities.”4 What were period when American schools of these conferences? Who attended design were absorbing an influx of and what was deliberated? And, what foreign practitioners and teachers do these midwestern, mid-century due to the near certainty of war in meetings reveal about architectural Europe. Gropius, a recent German education at UM during this period? émigré to the United States and the founder of the Bauhaus, was a key

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Wells Ira Bennett

Walter gropius

Ann Arbor District Library | © The Ann Arbor News

© Louis Held

The Ann Arbor Conferences, a series of almost a dozen academic and professional gatherings, were the creations of Wells Ira Bennett (1888-1966). Born in Red Creek, New York, Bennett earned degrees in architecture from Syracuse University and UM before joining the UM architecture faculty in 1912 and serving as dean from 1938 to 1957.5 A designer with a keen interest in low-cost housing design and urban planning, Bennett’s tenure at UM was marked by many developments including the creation of a city planning program in 1946, the promotion of an experimental laboratory, the hiring of innovative instructors, and the nurturing of landscape and urban design curricula. As a pedagogue, he rejected any limiting definition of architecture and, instead, embraced an expansive understanding of design. The eleven Ann Arbor Conferences that were held during

his nineteen-year deanship are evidence of the breadth and depth of UM’s educational approach guided by his stewardship.

The first Ann Arbor Conference, “Coordination in Design with Regard to Education in Architecture and Allied Design,” was organized

by Bennett and his colleagues Joseph Hudnut, dean of Harvard’s Graduate School of Design, and Walter Baermann, Director of the California Graduate School of Design at Caltech. It was no accident that the Conference was held “in the middle” in Michigan since the goal was to find common ground in design education. While, regrettably, no proceedings were published, archived personal correspondences, such as the Gropius-to-Bennett letter quoted earlier, news articles, and published reviews offer some inkling of the matters discussed and connections forged.

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“Unconventional Convention”

The Ann Arbor Conferences (1940-1954) 1940 Coordination in Design with Regard to Education in Architecture and Allied Design 1943

The Ann Arbor Conference (post-war role and responsibility of the architect)

1944

Architectural Design and Practice

1945

Architectural Design and Practice, 2nd

1947

Hospital Planning

1948

Esthetic Evaluation of Beauty in Architecture – or Beauty in Architecture and Allied Arts

1949

Midcentury Report on Design Progress

1950

The Theatre

1951

Changing Community Pattern as a result of Industrial Relocation

1952

Design of Industrial Plant

1954

Design & the American Consumer

Walter Gropius presented a paper on “Training the Architect for Contemporary Architecture,” which he delivered again later that year at the Department of Art Education Seminar on Modern Architecture held by the National Education Association of the United States. The full text of the address was subsequently published in the Department of Art Education Bulletin in 1941. In his comments, Gropius laments that the “discrepancy between occupation and vocation is seriously increasing” and that the “courage to venture into other fields of human experience has vanished in our specialized system of production.” 6 Gropius’s call for the “simultaneous training of handicraft and design” at the Ann Arbor Conference was a reiteration of his Bauhausian thesis.

Kenneth C. Black, then President of the Michigan Society of Architects (MSA), wrote a review of the Conference for the MSA’s Weekly Bulletin. Black observed that it was a “distinct pleasure” to witness the “leaders of modern education

in design” present their platforms with “evangelical zeal.” Black continued, “The conference, which began as a serious attempt to explore the possibility of establishing a fundamental educational background for architectural and industrial designers, wandered off into a labyrinth of semi-related subjects and ended by becoming a sounding board for the individual theories of its leading conferees” 7 (Gropius, Moholy-Nagy, and Saarinen). In response to these disparate positions, Frederick Kiesler, an American-Hungarian architect and multi-media designer, declared “Architectural education’s primary purpose is to teach students to think for themselves.” 8 Though initially shocking to those present, Kiesler’s proposition was ultimately accepted by the assembly and, in many ways, shaped the ethos of future Conferences. Kiesler’s position—which eschewed a Beaux Arts approach and rejected the limits of “technics (à la MaholyNagy) or of materials (à la Gropius),” embraced the aim of training designers “in a broad scientific

Hennebury

Kenneth C. Black

Joseph Hudnut

Michigan Modern

JSTOR | © 1997 Society of Architectural Historians

approach.” 9 This strategy was one he nurtured through his Laboratory of Design Correlation at Columbia University, an experimental approach that, no doubt, energized parallel research initiatives at UM. Black ended his review with this wish: “I would like to express the hope that as modern educational programs in design develop, they will not pay too much attention to the mechanics of technology (which are always in a state of flux) but will lean, with Saarinen [and Kiesler], toward the development of freedom of thought and a fundamental appreciation of beauty and design in all the arts.” 10

No officers to be elected? No committees to report? No by-laws to be amended? No resolutions to be voted?... Nothing but ideas and opinions; nothing but good talk and good listening; new friends and new understandings. Nothing but plans for work to be done and faith that great things can yet be accomplished…. It certainly is an unconventional convention. 11

The first Conference officially concluded with a call from Harvard’s Joseph Hudnut to meet again in a spirit of exploration. With this freedom in mind, those present agreed to not formalize the event, but rather, to maintain the focus on dialogue and community.

“

”

–Joseph Hudnut

While the 1940 Conference had the most robust representation from the Modern pantheon, subsequent gatherings are notable for the topics addressed and the attendees.

Responding to Kiesler’s challenge, each Conference sought “to bring to the architect, and also to the practitioners of our sister arts, a better mutual understanding of their problems in such fields as the theater and industrial design.” 12 The second conference, held in 1943,

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“Unconventional Convention”

Frederick Kiesler The Frederick Kiesler Foundation

addressed the most pressing issue of the time, that of the post-war role of the architect.

“

[The architect] must not wait until the war is over, then it will be too late. The Architect is peculiarly trained and fitted and he must make these more effective than ever through the mediums of: Research, Publication, Exhibitions, Education-public, Participation in post-war community planning, Public relations between industry and the public. 13

” –MSA Weekly Bulletin

November 23, 1943

Practicing architects from San Francisco, Chicago, Washington, D.C., and across the state of Michigan converged on Ann Arbor

for the conference where they were joined by academics from UM, Harvard University, the University of Minnesota, and the University of Texas.

The 1945 Conference on “Architectural Design and Practice” was the first with published proceedings. The topics covered were of such relevance to the profession that many of the papers were reprinted in the Weekly Bulletin of the Michigan Society of Architects. The sessions on the first day of the Conference included “Architecture Today” (Joseph Hudnut, Dean, School of Design, Harvard University), “Design in Practice” (William Wilson Wurster, Dean, School of Architecture, Massachusetts Institute of Technology), and “The Relation of the Architect

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to Government” (George Howe, Deputy Commissioner, Public Buildings Administration). The second day, February 4th, saw an array of presentations ranging from John W. Root of Holabird and Root (Chicago) on “Procedure of the Large Office” to the UM’s George B. Brigham on “Prefabrication.” 14

Conference from getting ‘hardening of the arteries’ as so many tend to do over a long period of time.” 16

The remaining sessions of “Esthetic Evaluation”—sculpture, music, painting, and, finally, architecture— were similarly enriching. In the “Painting” session, György Kepes spoke on “Visual Forms—Structural By the late 1940s, the Ann Arbor Forms.” Kepes, who had studied with Conferences were an established László Moholy-Nagy in Berlin, came part of the professional and to the United States and taught at academic milieu in the Midwest the New Bauhaus in Chicago. Later, and beyond with practitioners and after moving his teaching to MIT, educators alike participating in Kepes would launch an art-science the lively conversations. The 1948 research institute called Center for Conference on “Esthetic Evaluation” Advanced Visual Studies (CAVS) in featured a number of influential 1967. As a review of UM College of sessions.15 Christopher Tunnard (Yale Architecture and Design faculty University), author of seminal city meeting minutes during this decade planning texts including Gardens reveals, the foregrounding of applied in the Modern Landscape (1948), and exploratory research at the Ann spoke on “Landscape Design in Arbor Conference is very much in Relation to Architecture and City concert with UM initiatives promoted Planning” and philosopher Dr. Irwin by Bennett and his faculty. 17 S. Erdman (Columbia University), The “Architecture” session on author of Arts and the Man: A Short the second day of the “Esthetic Introduction to Aesthetics (1960), Evaluation” Conference was among other volumes, contributed moderated by Alden B. Dow and “Architecture and other Forms of included a presentation, “What Esthetic Experience.” This opening session was moderated by G. Holmes Buildings are Beautiful?” by Joseph Perkins who was serving as the chair Hudnut and a panel on Esthetic Qualities in Architecture. This panel of Regional Planning at Harvard University at the time. Interestingly, featured Charles Eames, Douglas Haskell (editor at Architectural in 1950 Perkins moved to head the Forum), and Philip Will (president School of Fine Arts at the University of Pennsylvania where he shifted the of the Chicago American Institute of Architects [AIA] chapter from 1946 to curricular structure away from its 1950 and the national AIA president Beaux Arts roots and transformed from 1960 to 1962). Eames, who as a the program into a collaborative and student and instructor in industrial interdisciplinary one. A critic of a design at Cranbrook Art Academy static approach to design education had collaborated extensively with and practice, Perkins commented Eero Saarinen,18 was invested in on the Ann Arbor Conferences, humanistic modern design. At the “Certainly Dean Bennett is to be time of his participation in the 1948 congratulated on the wonderful job Ann Arbor Conference, Eames was he has done and on preventing the

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“Unconventional Convention”

Charles Eames © Eames Office, LLC

deeply enmeshed in John Entenza’s (the influential publisher of Arts & Architecture magazine) Case Study House Program in California.

Working initially with Saarinen on a 1945 design for a “house for modern living,” Charles and Ray Eames would ultimately build Case Study House #8 in 1949 in Pacific Palisades.

Following just a year later, the 1949 Ann Arbor Conference was equally extraordinary. Officially the 7 th Ann Arbor Conference, entitled “Midcentury Report on Design Progress,” the ambitious theme was meant to encapsulate the “end of an exciting half-century, and [take stock] since certain dynamic aspects

promise continued change in the fifty years ahead.” 19 In the section on “Buildings,” Buckminster Fuller, designer and author, presented his prefabrication research and discussed the potential applications of the geodesic form. In the same session, Carl Koch, an architectural consultant for the Lustron Corporation (Ohio) presented “The Industrialized House” and Nathaniel A. Owings of Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill (Chicago), spoke on “Trends in Design of Large Buildings and Groups of Buildings.” The section on “Equipment” featured presentations

by Richard Pratt, architecture editor of the Ladies’ Home Journal, and Douglas Haskell, the architecture

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Eero Saarinen

Buckminster Fuller

"Getty Images"—Universal History Archive

The Buckminster Fuller Institute

editor of the Architectural Forum. 20 Once again, a packed agenda with challenging content.

The essential thread of “continuity in the Conference has

been a recognition of the essential interrelation of all phases of visual The design conference was not a new design. As usually understood the phenomenon when Bennett launched sense of a common cause for the the Ann Arbor series in 1940. In several aspects of design is very fact, it was a “much used device” of tenuous. Paradoxically, however, 21 the time. Professional events held it is probably the very weakness of by the AIA and National Council this thread of continuity that has of Architectural Registration bound together the nine meetings Boards (NCARB) and other official organizations were well established. that have measured the life of the And, of course, the Modern Conference. From such strands movement had its own meetings, as architecture, philosophy of notably the Congrès International esthetics and design, community d'Architecture Moderne (CIAM) planning, the drama, and which held eleven sessions between industrial design, there has been 1928 and 1959. Bennett himself, in spun the tie that binds. 23 an article he wrote for the Journal of –Wells I. Bennett the American Institute of Architects in 1952, emphasizes that unlike the conferences just mentioned, the Ann A second important characteristic of Arbor Conferences were not outcome the Ann Arbor Conferences was the driven nor was “there the temptation participant profile. Aside from a core group, the individuals attending to come to a formula.” Rather, the objective was the discussion of ideas and presenting their ideas changed conference to conference with and, to achieve this without bias subject matter experts brought in to and restriction, “the channels of communication, speech and personal share their knowledge and skills. In presence [were] freely open.” 22 this way, the Ann Arbor Conferences

”

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“Unconventional Convention”

avoided the “echo chamber” of a restrictive, overly formal system. To prevent narrowing the scope of the conversations, the Conferences switched between general and specific topics that could meaningfully bridge academia and professional practice. For example, while the 1945 Conference, discussed above, addressed the broader concerns of “Architectural Design and Practice,” the 1947 session was dedicated to “Hospital Planning” and the 1950 meeting was titled “The Theater.” As an example of the range of participants, the Conference on “Hospital Planning” included physicians and hospital administrators in addition to the design professionals. 24 At the 10th Conference, in 1952, on the “Design of the Industrial Plant,” both Minoru Yamasaki and Eero Saarinen presented alongside renowned social psychologist Rensis Likert. 25 As Bennett noted, “whether the particular conference is speculative or pragmatic in approach, information is exchanged and one can feel the scene enlivened by the interplay of emotional and intellectual ideas.” 26 The Ann Arbor Conferences did not continue as originally imagined beyond the deanship of Wells Bennett. During his tenure, however, they were a magnetic force that placed the design programs at the UM in the thick of mid-century thinking. The quality of the presentations and the openness of the dialogue drew individuals from the academic elite and a wide range of creative practices. Ideas were explored, experimentation was encouraged, and research emphasized. Architect Walter A. Taylor, the founder of

the AIA’s Department of Education and Research (launched in 1946) noted that with conferences, “the unforeseen, unscheduled byproducts are worth more than the formal program. At Ann Arbor we get more of the treasured byproducts, the aroma, the distilled essence of much thinking, while the prepared remarks, of as high quality as any, are the framework or vehicle for the intangibles, the effervescence, the overtones.” 27  Notes 1. Gropius, W. (1940). April 16 Letter to Wells Ira Bennett. Wells Ira Bennett Papers Box 1: Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan.

2. The “Booth Competition” to which the letter refers is the George G. Booth Traveling Fellowship which was first awarded in 1924 and today, in 2021, offers a travel stipend of up to $10,000 to a recent graduate of the Master of Architecture degree at the University of Michigan. The award was funded by and named for George Gough Booth, the founder of the Cranbrook Educational Community and the patron of Eliel Saarinen. https://taubmancollege. umich.edu/resources/george-g-boothtraveling-fellowship 3. Bennett, W. I. (1952). The Ann Arbor Conferences. Journal of the American Institute of Architects (March 1952).

4. Bartlett, N. (1995). More than a Handsome Box: Education in Architecture at the University of Michigan 1875-1986. University of Michigan College of Architecture and Urban Planning. George Brigham Papers, Bentley Historical Library, Box 2, "Correspondence" file.

5. Wells Ira Bennett Papers: 1916-1965 The Bentley Historical Library University of Michigan Retrieved 6/10/2021 from https:// quod.lib.umich.edu/b/bhlead/umich-bhl85577?rgn=main;view=text 6. Gropius, W. (1941). Training the Architect for Contemporary Architecture. Department of Art Education Bulletin, VII. 7. Black, K. C. (1940). The Ann Arbor Conference. Pencil Points (March 1940).

Hennebury 8. Phillips, S. (2010). Toward a Research Practice: Frederick Kiesler’s Design-Correlation Laboratory. Grey Room (38), 90-120.

9. Black, K. C. (1940). The Ann Arbor Conference. Pencil Points (March 1940).

10. Ibid.

11. Hudnut, J. (1952). The Ann Arbor Conferences: from the sidelines. Journal of the American Institute of Architects (March 1952).

12. Perkins, G. H. Ibid.

13. The Ann Arbor Conference. (1943). Weekly Bulletin of the Michigan Society of Architects, 17 (No. 46).

14. George B. Brigham, J. (1945).

Prefabrication: a talk before the Ann Arbor Conference. Ibid., 19 (No. 39). Brigham’s work in prefabrication and his other notable contributions to architectural education and residential design in Michigan are discussed in Jeffrey Welch’s article in this issue (AIA Huron Valley Awards 2022, no. 05, pp. 06-25).

15. The Ann Arbor Conference. (1948). Ibid., XXII (No. 13).

16. Perkins, G. H. (1952). The Ann Arbor Conferences: from the sidelines. Journal of the American Institute of Architects (March 1952).

17. A. Alfred Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning (University of Michigan) records.

Deirdre Hennebury All Rights Reserved August 24, 2021

(1876-2011). Box 1 and 2, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan.

18. Charles Eames and Eero Saarinen entered and won the 1941 Museum of Modern Art "Organic Design in Home Furnishings" competition.

19. Bennett, W. I. (1948). November 29 Letter to Buckminster Fuller. Wells Ira Bennett Papers Box 1: Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan.

20. Papers Presented at the Seventh Ann Arbor Conference. (1949). Mid-Century Report on Design Progress Review-Preview, University of Michigan.

21. Bennett, W. I. (1952). The Ann Arbor Conferences. Journal of the American Institute of Architects (March 1952).

22. Ibid.

23. Ibid.

24. The Ann Arbor Conference. (1945).

Weekly Bulletin of the Michigan Society of Architects, 19 (No. 19).

25. Tenth Ann Arbor Conference: the Design of Industrial Plants. (1952). Weekly Bulletin of the Michigan Society of Architects, 26 (No. 11).

26. Bennett, W. I. (1952). The Ann Arbor Conferences. Journal of the American Institute of Architects (March 1952).

27. Taylor, W. A. Ibid.The Ann Arbor Conferences: from the sidelines.

All images in this article are credited below each image. Every attempt has been made to contact the appropriate copyright owners.

About the Author Deirdre L. C. Hennebury, Ph.D., is the Associate Director of the Museum Studies Program at the University of Michigan and the co-chair of the Albert Kahn Research Coalition. A historian, curator, and dedicated educator, Deirdre holds degrees in Architecture and Urban Planning from Princeton University, Harvard University, and the University of Michigan and is a former Fellow of the Cranbrook Center for Collections and Research.

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AIA Huron Valley Awards 2022

Image Credit: Laura Bade

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Community Engagement 38 One Story in One Photo 44 The Alleyway Project 54 AIA MI Design Perspective: Health and wellness in the built Environment

By Anne Cox

60 Ann Arbor 2030 District

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One Story in One Photo Presented by AIA Huron Valley The inaugural One Story in One Photo Photography Contest received 22 submissions from members and community participants. The objective was to submit photographs that correlate a piece of architecture with the experience of its inhabitants. They could be located anywhere in the world and showcase any style of architecture, historic to contemporary or even landscape architecture. The goal was to tell the story with a single image. One photograph illustrating either a detail, a whole building, or an entire cityscape.

The contest was juried by an Independent Review Panel of allied local design professionals including photographers and graphic designers. Three winners were selected and prizes were awarded as follows: 1st Place—$500, 2nd—$250, 3rd—$100.

AIA Huron Valley President Anna Anderson also made a “President’s Choice” selection to receive a prize in her place.

Jurors Jeff Garland Don Hammond Mike Savitski

credits (left-to-right from top) Bob Hart, William Finnicum, Korzell Coe, Laura Bade, Manal Ajami, Amber Perry, Deanna Hart, Ilene Tyler, Donna Hart, Laura Bade, Ben Ridderbos, Claude Faro, Nicole Gerou, Owen Kaufman, Kristen Nyht, Rex C. Donahey

3rd Place "Labrynths of Venice" Anna Anderson

This picture was taken during our family vacation in Venice. We didn't plan the day.

We didn't know where we were going that day and decided to explore the streets and see what place we will end up. I loved to see

her eagerness of looking for the 'unknown' and being submerged by architecture and history. She walking and thinking and I was with them.

2nd Place "Farmstead of Drangurinn" Scott M Gustafson

This photo was taken in May of 2018 at the old farmstead of Drangurinn í Drangshlíð II in southern Iceland. As an architect I was particularly drawn to the care and attention taken to fit this shed againse rock.

People have lived in Iceland for over 1600 years, at times subverting nature, but by in large adapting themselves to nature. To me this architectural intervention symbolizes that balance.

1st Place "Ore Dock"

Ben Ridderbos I took this photo a couple of years ago while working on a project in Marquette, MI. What fascinated me was the massive size and presence of this large concrete and steel structure that was built in the early 1900's. Imagine the effort that went into constructing this well before we had the construction equipment and machinery of today. This impressive structure moved large quantities of mined ore from train to

freighter ships. Also, I shot this phot early in the morning and thought it was pretty cool how calm the Lake Superior water was and the stillness and fog made for an ominous feeling.

It's a standing example of engineering/ architectural innovation from way back in the early 1900's that was used to move massive quantities of ore from train to ship.

President's Choice "Fushimi Inari Shrine" Liliana Gonzalez

I woke up early to go for a run (one of my favorite ways to explore a new place). I was told I needed to visit the Fushimi Inari Shrine, especially the thousands of torii gates, which are part of the mountain trails of Mount Inari. It was one of the most beautiful runs I have experienced. I think a reason for that was the beautiful

combination of architecture and nature working together, as well as a deep sense of belonging that the space brought out.

This, for me, was an example of the power of architecture and the potential it holds to connect us, even if at the time you are the only one experiencing the space.

"Rainbow Cloud" JWXT

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The Alleyway Project Supported this year by AIA Huron Valley Chapter The Alleyway Project: Activating Ann Arbor’s Alleys through Art is a community outreach project presented by the A2AC Art in Public Program’s newest initiative, A2AC Alleys. It is a public art, architecture & design exhibit focusing on the urban fabric that exists in the space between our city’s buildings.

The intent of the exhibit is to exemplify the potential of these spaces and the benefits they have in creating a healthy urban environment throughout Ann Arbor.

Alleyways throughout the United States are often disregarded as solely service corridors, lined with dumpsters, mechanical units, and fire escapes, with just enough room for a vehicle to pass between buildings.

Historically, alleys were thought of much differently than the contemporary model.

The origin of the word alley is late Middle English, stemming from the Old French word alee meaning “walking or passage”. In large cities predating the automobile, these “passages” were intended as a path for the ambulatory human being. Oftentimes the scale and design of these spaces reflected this as well as the rich activity that occurred daily within them. Today, rarely do we find an alley that focuses on the human scale of walking from one place to the next. Even rarer is it that these pathways are a place for human activity.

We want to re-imagine Ann Arbor’s alleyways; to breathe life into these auxiliary spaces, to create a place, a destination in itself, and to demonstrate the value, the importance, and the potential of these spaces and the significance they have to our built urban fabric.

The Alleyways Project—Winners

Drip Jefferson Lettieri Office Staten Island, NY, USA Drip is a temporal installation and layered experience that reflects, sways, and slides. It celebrates the changing quality of the alley through its material reflection, flexibility, and community involvement.

A series of “drippy” colored mesh and mirrored panels are suspended above at a flexible height withing the alley walls. The lightweight panels delineate segments of space and are adjustable to serve as individual

backdrops for an event. The event spaces are further activated by communal paintings on the alley ground and walls.

In the spirit of A2AC Alleys commitment to activate auxiliary spaces and bring diverse voices together, we will work with the Detroit based University of Michigan program, ArcPrep, and provide a template for artistic and educational collaboration.

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The Alleyways Project—Winners

LOOMROOM Van Dyck Murphy Studio St. Louis, MO, USA LOOMROOM seeks to activate the alleyway by promoting social connection by weaving light, color, and energy into a set of suggested spaces for action and interaction. The location is both a destination and a pass-through space that entwines people and architecture together in a place that can host public events, provide a backdrop for informal gatherings, or inspire impromptu activities.

The urban fabric of downtown Ann Arbor consists of historic and contemporary architecture, public spaces, restaurants, bars, shops, residential and civic spaces, pedestrians, and vehicles. The alleyways are the urban connectors that link these spaces and elements.

LOOMROOM highlights this inbetween space by emphasizing the connectivity of these underappreciated zones.

portals while also emphasizing the verticality unique to alleyways as inbetween spaces. The “baskets” vary in size throughout the canopy and are strung from above to allow the area to function as an active working alley. Three larger “baskets” create small urban rooms that can be used for various experiences such as music performances, dining out events, or other public gatherings while still providing visual connectivity. The larger baskets can be lifted using the cable suspension systems to allow for more room under the woven canopy after the initial weeks of celebratory events in the alleyway. Large swathes of color signify locations for community events where temporary furniture or other elements can be added while allowing the space to stay flexible.

Varied densities and color combinations of the multi-colored Taking form as a large room cords that comprise the project or three-dimensional weaving, allow for multiple perceptions and LOOMROOM is comprised of a network shifting perspectives throughout of cables from which steel frames the alleyway. The design allows for interlaced with colorful elastic cords colors to be seen both independently suspend to create woven basketlike and blend through overlapping while forms. Colorful vinyl strips wrap the also filtering light and projection walls and street below, continuing shadows. Textural fields and optical the linework established by the grids effects engage passersby prompting above. The woven baskets are open a new relationship with the city and at the top and bottom, encouraging its fabric. visitors to look up and view the sky through these multi-colored

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The Alleyways Project—Winners

A2 Sunset Form&Seek Beverly hills, mi, usa The sunset installation focuses on bringing light and attraction to unused alleyways of Ann Arbor.

The sequential structure f loats multi-colored fabrics in different saturations to depict sunset.

Each unit will connect with steel wires to the sidewalls and create a lightweight structure for the hanging fabric. The project is suggested for the alleyway on W. Washington St. and planned with durable fabric that can withstand harsh weather conditions. It is a fresh, whimsical, and appealing installation that will fit in with the fun Ann Arbor spirit.

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The Alleyways Project—Winners

Urban-Fetti LAA Office Columbus, IN, USA “Urban-Fetti” proposes to transform the alleyways of Ann Arbor with colorful bursts of confetti-like elements that playfully occupy the neighborhood’s pavement and building facades. By adding an element of surprise and joy to the urban environment, it will inspire wonder and uplift the spirits of residents and visitors alike. The installation is designed to appear random at first but is in fact installed and orchestrated using a precise pattern. It can be adapted to suit several conditions and potential sites. Furthermore, it engages both the ground plane and vertical surfaces of buildings to create an immersive environment that will draw pedestrians through alleyways to discover exciting works of art.

The installation consists of two simple materials, as well as the potential to use fluorescent colors and UV light to activate spaces at night. The first material is a foil-based decal intended to last approximately one year and be compatible with several common surfaces, including asphalt, concrete, and brick. This product

is typically used for commercial applications, but is ideal for temporary public art. It is slip resistant, impervious to water and temperature fluctuations, and works equally well on smooth or uneven surfaces. A vibrant spectrum of colors can be printed on foilbased decals and their installation or removal is possible without the use of specialized tools. The second material will be powdercoated aluminum, which will add a different texture to the vertical portion of the installation installed on an existing building facade.

The simple shapes can be CNCmilled and fixed to an integrated L-bracket used to attach each unit with basic fasteners. A wide array of fluorescent color finishes can be achieved through the powdercoating process, which can be further amplified by the addition of UV light fixtures near the installation.

“Urban-Fetti” is meant to provide an immersive and joyful experience that will add to the vibrancy of downtown Ann Arbor!

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AIA Michigan Design Perspectives

Health and Wellness in the Built Environment How a whole systems approach of ecological, economic, and social factors build the case for sustainable healing environments Anne Cox Promoting a healthy and sustainable built environment is a current topic of much concern in the news. The COVID-19 pandemic has brought to attention the need to have resilient, flexible, well maintained, and superefficient hospitals. As resources are stretched to provide healthcare during a period of unprecedented crisis, hospital environments that promote human health and wellness while responding efficiently and economically, have provided the best back drop for healthcare. A sustainable approach that considers the ecological, economic, and social factors of healthcare provides the ideal framework for the most resilient hospitals. A whole systems approach to the optimal healing environment.

Sustainability Movement in Healthcare—an Ecological Response Preparing healthcare organizations to meet future challenges is exactly what helped to spark the Green Hospitals movement. In 1997 the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced regulations governing the emissions from medical waste incinerators. The EPA introduced measures for stringent cleaner air regulations to stop the discharge of highly toxic dioxin and mercury emissions. Dioxins had been identified as highly potent carcinogens and mercury identified as a neurotoxin. Medical waste incineration had been putting into

55 the atmosphere toxic health harming agents. The very organizations that were trying to help and promote human health, had been contributing to serious health problems.

Health Care Without Harm (HCWH) began in 1996, as the EPA was ramping up its efforts to clean up emissions from medical waste incinerations. Hospitals for a Healthy Environment (H2E) was launched in 1998 when the EPA and the American Hospital Association signed a Memorandum of Understanding to address healthcare’s contribution to medical waste emissions and mercury pollution. The H2E movement was backed by HCWH and led to the development of the Green Guide for Health Care (GGHC) in 2002, one of the first specific guides for sustainable healthcare. It recognized the two important aspects of the sustainability efforts for hospitals: Design and Construction of Facilities and Ongoing Operations.

In 2008 H2E was renamed Practice Greenhealth and took on a new role as a member organization for healthcare systems and their Ongoing Operations. The Design and Construction of Facilities portion of the GGHC was sunsetted in 2011 as LEED for Healthcare came into the marketplace. Practice Greenhealth has evolved into the leading membership organization in the US for hospitals that are committed to sustainable hospital ongoing operations.

Tools for Sustainable Design and Construction—an Economic Means to Create Change As industry partners in design and construction, understanding the

motivation behind the healthcare sustainability movement is an important precursor to understanding the tools. Think of it as a business case as to ‘why’ sustainability is so important to hospitals. ‘First do no harm’ is a doctrine of medical practice itself.

If a hospital can become leaner in operations and maintenance, they can use that saved money for patient care. If a hospital can become ‘healthier’ in operations and maintenance, they are protecting the health of the patients they treat, and more fully meeting their oath to protect human health. If a healthcare organization greens their operations and procurement to protect the environment, they are protecting the planet that supports life itself.

This whole systems approach of protecting the environment, promoting an economical business model AND being socially responsible to promote human health is a triad of interdependence that allows a healthcare organization to follow its mission. To promote, protect and provide healthcare. An unprofitable business will fail. A healthcare organization that promotes sustainability, is promoting human health, environmental health, and financial health. It is a sound business model for a healthcare organization.

There are prescribed rating systems, product certifications, codes, and online tools to aid in the business of sustainable healthcare. New hospital construction, existing facilities or substantial renovations can rely on building rating systems or green product selection.

Energy management and building commissioning are also areas where great impact on the dollars and sense of healthcare can be gained.

Here is a listing of some of the most common tools:

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AIA Michigan Design Perspectives

Building Rating systems LEED for Healthcare

WELL

A green building ratings program administered by USGBC

A ratings program that concentrates on occupant health and well-being

Green Globes Certification

Fitwel

An online rating system, applicable to any building type

A program focusing on wellbeing of occupants and surrounding community

Product Declaration & Disclosures —Multi Attribute Third Party Certifications, Calculators & Resources Environmental Product Declaration Red List Independently verified product Life Cycle Assessment

Worst in class materials, chemicals and elements that pose risk to human health

Health Product Declaration

Product Lense

Full disclosure of potential chemicals of concern in a product

UL transparency tool with material ingredient data reporting for product lifecycle

Declare Label A ‘nutrition label’ for products that lists chemical analysis & raw material sourcing

Living Product Challenge Administered by ILFI with petals for seven performance categories

JUST Label A voluntary disclosure program that includes an organization’s social justice & equity

Mindful Materials A free platform of aggregated info on human health & environmental impacts

Material Bank A logistics platform for sourcing design samples, easy search & return options

Green Seal ISO certification for paints, adhesives, lamps, chillers, windows, occupancy sensors

Cradle to Cradle Certified For building materials, textiles, fabrics, paper, homecare products

GreenGuard UL certification for products that have low chemical emissions

Green Squared ISO certification for tile and tile installation

SCS Global Services Certification for recycled content and biodegradable liquids

Embodied Carbon in Construction Calculator EC3

AIA Materials Initiative

Materials for retrofit or new construction

Tools and education to measure & understand the impact of products

Life Cycle Assessments

Carbon Smart Materials Palette

Through online Ecochain, openLCA, Mobius, SimaPro, GaBi, OneClickLCA

A tool for embodied carbon reductions

Energy and Resource—Single Attribute Third Party Product Certifications Energy Star

Forest Stewardship Council

An EPA program to benchmark and track energy use and efficiency

Certification of forests and forestry products

WaterSense A governmental label based on third party testing

Cox

Whole Building Commissioning, Certification, Green Building Codes, and Initiatives American Society of Healthcare Engineers ASHE Health Facility Commission Guidelines

AIA Blueprint for Better Design tools to help stop climate change

AIA Framework for Design Excellence Defining principles of good design in the 21st Century

IGCC International Green Construction Code

ASHRAE Standard 189.1 The Design of High-Performance Green Buildings

IECC International Energy Conservation Code

Zero Code The renewable energy appendix to the International Energy Conservation Code

Zero Carbon Certification ILFI sponsored third party certified zero carbon emission buildings

Advancement of the Human Health & Wellness Movement— the physical and social impacts on health Health Care: Health by definition is the absence of disease. The definition of Care is expanding beyond just the delivery of care to one that can enhance wellbeing. For years healthcare organizations have been conscious of their impact on the environment and wanting to provide a healthy buildings for patients, staff, and families. The sustainability champion in many hospitals has been charged with greening the operations. Promoting energy efficiency, recycling efforts, healthier products, and healthy materials for use in the hospital, even creating foundations that staff can contribute part of their paycheck to go towards these healthier initiatives. The triple bottom line of protecting the planet, profit and the health of people has been an interconnected business model that has largely driven the healthier hospitals movement. Recent weather events and the pandemic health crisis have proven that a resilient hospital that can continue to provide healthcare efficiently,

economically, and safely during a disaster, is critical. A Sustainable Hospital is one that is well-positioned in a crisis to effectively continue safe and effective healthcare delivery.

The whole systems definition of a healthy modern sustainable hospital is evolving beyond what is good for the planet, profit, and people by ‘do no harm’, to one with a broader definition that includes enhanced and improved health and wellbeing.

Health Care Without Harm has been advocating a future vision for healthcare that is restorative, or healing. By advocating for environmental and social issues in the communities they serve, healthcare organizations move beyond the walls of the hospital to look at the total picture of human health. Creating wellbeing programs and access to healthcare outside of their mainstream hospital programs is a way to be a part of the prevention of harm and the promotion of health and wellbeing.

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AIA Michigan Design Perspectives

One comprehensive approach to well-being is detailed in the International Well Building Institute’s WELL Building Standard (wellcertified.com). It has ten concepts that address health and wellness for people in the built environment. A portion of the concepts address a healthy built environment with components addressing quality air, water, light, thermal comfort, sound, and healthy materials, while going beyond to address aspects of nourishment, movement, mind, and community. Looking at a holistic health picture, that goes beyond the building to promote human wellness.

This is a movement that looks to conceive sustainable environments that are also flexible, adaptable, and engaging to occupants. It aligns well with building research done through the years by the Center for Health Design, and the Evidence Based Design program of basing decisions about the built environment on credible research to achieve the best possible outcomes.

The Planetree Organization, that

is based on person-centered care, has also long considered a pleasant, nature inspired environment to be an important factor in the total care picture of positive patient outcome. Biophilia, coined by Edward O. Wilson in 1984, promotes a human connection with nature.

Research studies using biophilic imagery have shown improved patient outcomes including decreased stress, decreased use of pain medications, and increased wellbeing. Active Building Design is another tool that can promote physical activity in a building, and thereby promote health through its design. The social programs and physical environment interventions of these different programs can all be considered as important elements of a whole systems sustainable healthcare program.

Health.gov and the Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion has established ‘Healthy People 2030’ to set objectives to improve the overall health of Americans.

Promoting health through improved physical environments, increased access to healthcare and wellness

Cox platforms are some of the important aspects in their notes on improving American’s health. A sustainable hospital, which promotes health and wellness through a restorative environment, community outreach and initiatives, employee, and patient wellness programs, is the transformative future for healthcare design. A holistic model, that supports human health and wellness by the very actions that it takes.

As industry partners, integral to creating the built environment, we can make a difference by choosing to educate ourselves and apply the components that go into a healthy built environment. Be an

advocate for health and wellness by promoting energy conservation, healthy materials, and get healthy yourselves! Being an ambassador for health and wellness can start with you. Our industry has many tools that you can utilize to create and make a difference in the built environment. I would be happy to continue the conversation about how you can become an advocate for health and wellness. Going beyond the basics in your next project, to incorporate ideas and products that represent health is part of being a force for change. We all need to be a part of the optimal sustainable healing environment. 

This article was originally published in the May 2021 issue of CAM Magazine. You can view it online at www.BuildwithCAM.com

About the Author Anne M. Cox, AIA, ACHA, EDAC, LEED AP BD+C, WELL AP is a Board-Certified Health Care Architect, who is a Senior Principal at A3C Collaborative Architecture, in Ann Arbor, MI. She has over 25 years of experience creating healthcare environments that enhance the health and wellness of the building occupants. She is currently President-Elect of AIA Huron Valley, and will serve as chapter President in 2022. She can be reached at: acox@a3c.com.

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Ann Arbor 2030 District Supported this year by AIA Huron Valley Chapter The Ann Arbor 2030 District is a membership organization that bridges the gap between private and public sectors to reduce negative impacts from buildings and transportation—the two leading contributors to climate change in our region. Our members have committed to significantly reduce water and energy use, and carbon emissions from transportation by the year 2030.

Our unique relationships with the community, private sector, public officials, and building owners, position us as a nexus for dramatically improving the health and environment of the community.

We now represent 5 Million Square Feet of building area—more than doubling our size each year.

The A2 2030 District breaks down market barriers to developing and operating high performance buildings. It plays a unique role in Ann Arbor’s built environment by: Serving as a partner in implementing the A2 Zero Carbon Neutrality Plan for thecommercial and multi-family building sector.

Identifying opportunities to improve building design and operations.

Brokering strategic partnerships with diverse stakeholders in dynamic forums.

Advocating for public policies, codes, and incentives that accelerate high performance.

Providing a voice for high performance real estate developers and operators.

The District works directly with real estate owners and developers, architects, engineers, and contractors. Our priorities focus on facilitating innovative, pragmatic, and economically viable strategies to reducing environmental impacts, increasing climate resilience, lowering operating

costs, and increasing property values.

Some examples of projects we have worked on include: Completing energy audits/assessments on nearly a million square feet.

Developing building dashboards for member buildings.

Working with DTE to automate data entry into ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager.

Collaborating with Simuwatt to create portfolio analysis for members with multiple buildings using Buildee software.

Continuing education with the AIA Huron Valley and Washtenaw Contractors Association.

Convening a Low Embodied Carbon Materials group to develop best practices for concrete and steel specifications.

We now have less than 10 years to achieve a 50% reduction in energy and water use as well as reducing transportation emissions by 50%. In fact, the latest science indicates that with a 65% reduction in GHG emissions, we only have a 65% chance of keeping global temperature rise to 1.5 deg C, above which we trigger dangerous consequences with the climate system. We are already seeing climate change impacts in Michigan including increased rain events and temperatures.

The Design, Construction and Real Estate sectors need to fully participate in decarbonizing our built environment for the next generation, so that all may grow up and enjoy a thriving community.

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Awards 2022 Submissions The following entries show that even within the constraints of a pandemic, architectural design can still thrive.

The 2022 Honor Awards represent the many hours of work, creativity, and intelligent architectural solutions of the members of the AIA Huron Valley Chapter.

Special thanks to this year's jurors from the AIA Toledo Chapter.

Jurors Ed Glowacki, AIA Emeritus Erin Curley, AIA Andy Knopp, AIA

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AIA Huron Valley Awards 2022

Cooper Standard World Headquarters New Construction, Addition or Renovation

Image Credit: Lindhout Associates

Lindhout Associates Northville, MI This international automotive supplier’s headquarters provides views and daylight with larger window openings that limit glare and heat through selftinting technology. Large and small collaboration zones spread throughout the plan allow cross-

departmental collaboration. Three different bricks and two different metal panels create layering on the exterior. The semi-glazed black brick features an iridescent finish that shimmers and changes tones as daylight conditions change.

Building Awards Submissions

Livonia Medical Center New Construction, Addition or Renovation

Image Credit: Lindhout Associates

Lindhout Associates Livonia, MI Nestled on the campus of Schoolcraft College, the Livonia Medical Center provides centralized services to the busy Interstate 275 corridor, while continuing a collaboration between the college and two medical entities.

This 123,865 square foot facility consolidates a handful of existing offices throughout the area while also

planting a large number of new offices to serve the Livonia community. The building transformed an existing empty field and maintenance area into a multi-specialty medical office and surgery center that consolidates patient services within a relaxing, healing environment.

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AIA Huron Valley Awards 2022

Mercy Health Norton Shores New Construction, Addition or Renovation

Image Credit: EV Construction

Lindhout Associates Norton Shores, MI Mercy Health Norton Shores is a 41,500 s.f. medical office building located south of Muskegan, two miles from the Lake Michigan shoreline.

This project is a result of the continued effort by the parent medical

group to consolidate local existing practices into one building and add common specialty services such as Pharmacy, Lab and Imaging to round out the convenient patient experience.

Building Awards Submissions

Aspirational Award Nominee

Ele's Place New Construction, Addition or Renovation

Image Credit: Ike Lea

HopkinsBurns Design Studio Livonia, MI Ele’s Place is a non-profit organization created to support children, who have suffered loss, in navigating the grieving process in a healthy and healing way.

Ele’s Place provides a community of understanding and shared

experience and is dedicated to providing the individual child with the particular and evolving support that they need at a given time; thus their mission to be a "Home for Healing Hearts“.

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AIA Huron Valley Awards 2022

Faith Covenant Lobby New Construction, Addition or Renovation—Under 3,500SF & $1M

Image Credit: Lindhout Associates

Lindhout Associates Farmington Hills, MI The Church needed a welcoming lobby, space for coffee and fellowship and a sound trap vestibule for the sanctuary. Collaboration with the office team, worship team and the greeting deacons led to reimaging the office location, pushing it west into existing classroom space.

Then POW! A raised, blue steel roof

frame and new entry point create a welcoming lobby space with a warm cedar ceiling, rhythmic globe lights, coffee bar and a new sound trap vestibule to the sanctuary. All happening with a softly curving carpet pattern guiding people to the worship and education spaces.

Building Awards Submissions

Little Home on the Prairie Residential—New Construction

Image Credit: Jeff Garland Photography

Angelini & Associates Architects Dexter, MI Every home starts with a dream.

For this couple, they dreamed of a small efficient home on a grassy prairie near Ann Arbor that would provide them with spaces for cooking together, entertaining friends, and raising children in an environment that supports their love of hiking, biking, and exploring the world. This

home was conceived of as two wings framing an outdoor space with the primary view toward the rolling hills of the river valley to the northeast.

A one-story living wing houses the living, dining, and kitchen spaces, with a saddlebag home office. A twostory bedroom wing is set up a half level, zoning this wing as private.

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AIA Huron Valley Awards 2022

Hill Street Townhomes Residential—New Construction

Image Credit: Lewis Greenspoon Architects

Lewis Greenspoon Architects Ann Arbor, MI This five-unit student apartment building combines a contemporary aesthetic while respecting the traditional neighborhood context.

The gable ends of the building reflect a typical residential element while the shed dormers and overall composition create a modern

expression of student housing. The townhomes are arranged so that four of them occupy the corners, and the fifth is in the middle – a more typical row-house layout. This way, four of the units have access to two sides of natural day-lighting.

Building Awards Submissions

Peaceful Primary Suite Residential—Addition or Renovation

Image Credit: Max Wedge

Studio Z Architecture Ann Arbor, MI After purchasing this 1960s ranch in Ann Arbor, the homeowners knew that the primary suite had to go. Studio Z designed an updated primary bathroom to provide the homeowners with a spacious shower and double vanity while still having

plenty of space and natural light. The Douglas fir wall provides warmth as well as a pop of color to this relaxing primary bathroom. Existing walk-in closets were reconfigured slightly to make the bathroom, closets, and dressing area more functional.

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AIA Huron Valley Awards 2022

Tailored Ranch Remodel Residential—Addition or Renovation

Image Credit: Max Wedge

Studio Z Architecture Farmington Hills, MI The owner of this 1950s ranch wanted to make her new home fit her style and needs, where she could age in place. The interior was reconfigured to create better flow throughout the home, and a guest bathroom and dedicated laundry room were added. In addition, all the finishes in the home were updated

to suit the homeowner’s taste.

To create a home for aging, zerothreshold entries, curbless showers, and wider doors were installed. The homeowner now has a beautiful, safe, and updated space that fits her style, which she can live in for years to come.

Building Awards Submissions

Neuroscience Center Pediatric Clinic Relocation Interior Design—New or Existing Buildings

Image Credit: Tony Simler, Beaumont Health

A3C Collaborative Architecture Royal Oak, MI The project was guided by the need to provide comfortable spaces for a wide range of pediatric patients, from infants through young adults.

A theme of nature and animals is integral to the design, with realistic images rather than cartoons. These

images are used as distractive elements to engage young guests’ attention, as well as for wayfinding cues. Built in waiting room seating includes life sized tree images, as well as overhead forest sky scenes.

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AIA Huron Valley Awards 2022

Tailored Ranch Remodel Interior Design—New or Existing Buildings

Image Credit: Max Wedge

Studio Z Architecture Farmington Hills, MI The owner of this 1950s ranch wanted to make her new home fit her style and needs, where she could age in place. The interior was reconfigured to create better flow throughout the home, and a guest bathroom and dedicated laundry room were added. In addition, all the finishes in the home were updated

to suit the homeowner’s taste.

To create a home for aging, zerothreshold entries, curbless showers, and wider doors were installed. The homeowner now has a beautiful, safe, and updated space that fits her style, which she can live in for years to come.

Building Awards Submissions

Peaceful Primary Suite Interior Design—New or Existing Buildings

Image Credit: Max Wedge

Studio Z Architecture Ann Arbor, MI After purchasing this 1960s ranch in Ann Arbor, the homeowners knew that the primary suite had to go. Studio Z designed an updated primary bathroom to provide the homeowners with a spacious shower and double vanity while still having

plenty of space and natural light. The Douglas fir wall provides warmth as well as a pop of color to this relaxing primary bathroom. Existing walk-in closets were reconfigured slightly to make the bathroom, closets, and dressing area more functional.

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AIA Huron Valley Awards 2022

Fairway Shanty Un-built Projects (client-supported)

Image Credit: Lindhout Associates

Lindhout Associates Bellaire, MI A Shanty House near Shanty Creek, on the 13th Fairway of a golf course in the northern lower peninsula of Michigan. The family has a golfer and a park ranger who also does magazine writing. A peaceful house oriented towards the golf course and as energy efficient as the budget allowed were the requests

from the owner. This led to the design of a Solar Thermal system with evacuated tube panels on the upper roof. These feed a coil in the underground storage tank which when, powered with one day of sun, can heat the radiant floor system of the house for four days.

and the winners are...

AIA Huron Valley Awards 2022

Winner

New Construction, Addition or Renovation

Cooper Standard World Headquarters Lindhout Associates Northville, MI

Architectural Team: Mike Kennedy

Owner: Schostak Brothers & Co., Inc.

Contractor: Cunningham Limp

Design Team: MEEC Engineering—MEP Paradis Engineering—Structural PEA Group—Civil & Landscaping IE Interiors—Furniture Systems

Image Credits: Lindhout Associates John D'Angelo Photography

Jurors' Remarks A complete package for a well “designed world headquarters. A great "campus" feel. ” “ A welcome place to come work with both indoor and outdoor ammenities. ”

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AIA Huron Valley Awards 2022

Winner

New Construction, Addition or Renovation

Livonia Medical Center Lindhout Associates Livonia, MI

Owner: SC Health Sciences / Trinity Health Michigan

Contractor: AUCH Construction

Design Team: IMEG—MEP Soils and Structures—Structural Zeimet Wozniak & Assoc.—Civil Allen Design—Landscape Arch.

Project Design & Management— Surgery Center Design

Image Credits: Lindhout Associates

Jurors' Remarks use of materials and natural “lightGood to enhance the interior spaces. ” “ Welcoming and impressive exterior presence, instills confidence. ”

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AIA Huron Valley Awards 2022

Winner

Residential—New Construction

Little Home on the Prairie Angelini & Associates Architects Dexter, MI

Architectural Team: Brad Angelini Theresa Angelini Jaclyn Melfi Donald MacDonald

Contractor: Brian Robards Custom Homes

Design Team: SDI Structures—Structural

Image Credits: Jeff Garland Photography

Jurors' Remarks great family home for everyday “funAand special celebrations. ” An unpretentious exterior that “unfolds into a surprisingly expansive interior. ”

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AIA Huron Valley Awards 2022

Winner

Interior Design—New or Existing Buildings

Neuroscience Center Pediatric Clinic Relocation A3C Collaborative Architecture Royal Oak, MI

Architectural Team: Brian Winkler Lissa Spitz

Jeff Stall

Owner: Beaumont Health

Contractor: Kasco, Inc.

Design Team: Peter Basso Associates—MEP Illuminart—Lighting Design Buffy McConnell Interior Design— Interior Designer

Image Credits: Tony Simler, Beaumont Health

Jurors' Remarks Excellent use of biophillic, nature “inspired interiors to ease stress in this clinic environment. ” A child will find a welcome “reprieve from their maladies in this playful interior. ”

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AIA Huron Valley Awards 2022

Winner Aspirational Project— Community Benefit

Ele's Place HopkinsBurns Design Studio Livonia, MI

Owner: Ele's Place

Contractor: O'Neal Construction

Design Team: Washtenaw Engineering Co.—Civil Robert Darvas Associates— Structural

Image Credits: Ike Lea

Jurors' Remarks a community where our “heartThisliesiaand deserves merit for its aspirational qualities of hope and welcoming.

”

Successfully brings the outside “in, with use of natural light, views to nature and warm natural finishes. ”

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Image Credit: James Haefner

Image Credit: Stanley Livingston

Image Credit: James Haefner

AIA Huron Valley Awards 2022

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Winner Firm Achievement Award

Architectural Resource Architectural Resource was established in 1991. Since its inception, the firm’s practice has focused exclusively on residential architecture. The reason for this goes right to the very heart the firm’s reason for being, its mission to create inspired living spaces that lead to inspired lives and create new futures.

Over the years, Architectural Resource has championed sustainable design by leading in the creation of exceptionally innovative and forward-looking residential projects, and has been recognized with over 150 design awards.

Image Credit: Max Wedge

All of Architectural Resource's work, even being at the extreme end of the known green universe, has been executed with care and consideration for the legacy from which it is created and the context in which it occurs.

Jurors' Remarks

“

Image Credit: Beth Singer

Masterful designs. Architectural Resource has evolved over time to incorporate evolving sustainability standards, while maintaining a good design response in all projects. From older homes and existing renovations to new construction, there is a wide range of response, all with good quality design and impactful sustainable interventions. They have checked all the boxes to receive this award, from site response down to playful interior detailing, including a marble game in an interior stair railing. Projects that delight their client’s needs and work for responsible sustainable solutions.

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AIA Huron Valley Awards 2022

Winner

AIA Michigan—Robert F. Hastings Award

Jan K. Culbertson, FAIA Named in honor of the late Robert F. Hastings, this award is given in recognition of a specific effort and contribution to AIA Michigan and the architecture profession.

Jan is a senior partner at A3C Collaborative Architecture in Ann Arbor. She is the Leadership Council Chair for the Ann Arbor 2030 District and a member of the Ann Arbor Public Schools Sustainability Advisory Committee.

Jurors' Remarks

“

Jan has focused on sustainability not only in her practice, but through advocacy for carbon neutrality. She has educated southeast Michigan with her leadership in the Ann Arbor 2030 District.

”

Jan is also active in Scio Township, serving as Vice-Chair of the Scio Township Zoning Board of Appeals and as a member of the Scio Township Planning Commission.

Jan advocates at the state and national level for the architectural profession and the environment as the Co-Chair of AIA Michigan’s Government Advocacy Committee. In her free time, she enjoys the Huron River, as a member of the Barton Boat Club, and especially enjoys hiking and biking.

Congratulations to this year's winners!

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AIA Huron Valley Awards 2022

AIA Huron Valley would like to thank our sponsors and members: Major Sponsors: $1,000 or Higher

MA Engineering 400 S Old Woodward, Suite 100 Birmingham, MI 48009 Contact: Salim Sessine SSessine@ma-engineering.com

Special Sponsors: $250 up to $1,000

AE Pro Net & Moore Insurance Services P.O. Box 2907, 67 N Howell Hillsdale, MI 49242 Contact: Eric Moore, VP emoore@mooreinsuranceservices.com

The Belden Brick Sales Company 31470 Utica Rd. Fraser, MI 48026 Contact: Dave Lacovic 586.484.0029 dave@beldenbricksales.com

Peter Basso Associates, Inc. | Illuminart 5145 Livernois Rd., Suite 100 Troy, MI 48098 248-879-5666 Contact: Scott Garrison sgarrison@pbanet.com

Sponsors & Members

Special Sponsors: $250 up to $1,000 Mans Lumber & Millwork 2275 S Industrial Hwy Ann Arbor, MI 48104 Contact: Gar Eddings 734.217.3260 geddings@manslumber.com

SDI Structures 275 East Liberty Ann Arbor, MI 48104 Contact: Paul Dannels paul@sdistructures.com

AIA Huron Valley Members Steven L. Adams

Associate AIA

Kurt Brandle

AIA Member Emeritus

Kevin Adkins

AIA

Kemba S. Braynon

AIA

Mitchell Alfaro

AIA Member Emeritus

Brian T. Burkett

AIA

Anna Anderson

AIA

Tamara E. Burns

FAIA

Dana J. Anderson

Associate AIA

Gene A. Carroll

AIA

Timothy M. Andres

AIA

Alexis L. Cecil

AIA

Theresa L. Angelini

AIA

James Chesnut

AIA

Bradford L. Angelini

AIA

Youngsung Choi

Associate AIA

Mary L. Bachelor

AIA

Wayne E. Chubb

AIA

Elizabeth Baird

AIA Member Emeritus

Denise Close

AIA

James E. Barnas

AIA

Robert F. Cole

AIA Member Emeritus

Scott A. Barnes

AIA

Gary J. Cornillaud

AIA Member Emeritus

Donald F. Barry

AIA

Andrew J. Cottrell

AIA

Daniel J. Barry

AIA

Anne M. Cox

AIA

Matt Biglin

AIA

George L. Craven

AIA Member Emeritus

Harold M. Boog

AIA

Jan K. Culbertson

FAIA

Craig Borum

FAIA

John Culotta

AIA Member Emeritus

Scott M. Bowers

AIA

Darryl H. Daniels

AIA

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94

AIA Huron Valley Awards 2022

Paul W. Darling

AIA

Catherine T. Jeakle

Associate AIA

Christine Darragh

Associate AIA

Matthew M. Jogan

AIA

Karl Daubmann

AIA

Steve C. Jones

AIA

Ann K. Dilcher

AIA

Gregory A. Jones

AIA

Tom Dillenbeck

AIA

George M. Kacan

AIA

Kathryn Dobija

AIA

Douglas S. Kelbaugh

FAIA Member Emeritus

Nathan T. Doud

AIA

Michael J. Kennedy

AIA

Honglin Du

Associate AIA

Ann A. Kenyon

AIA

Huiting Du

Associate AIA

Kevin L. King

AIA

Frank W. Enneking

AIA Member Emeritus

Michael S. Kirchner

AIA

Jason Ennis

Associate AIA

Michael R. Klement

AIA

David Esau

AIA

John Knauss

Associate AIA

Amlin I. Eshita

Associate AIA

Daniel E. Kohler

AIA

Danielle Etzler

AIA

Henry S. Kowalewski

AIA Member Emeritus

William P. Farrand

AIA Member Emeritus

Anthony M. Kraatz

AIA

Damian Farrell

FAIA

Julia M. Krieger

AIA

Bruce Paul Findling

AIA

Timothy B. Landini

Associate AIA

Nicholas B. Foussianes

AIA

YuHang Leung

Associate AIA

John J. Francey

AIA

Heather Graham Lewis

AIA

Charlotte L. Fuss

Associate AIA

David B. Lewis

AIA

Ludovic F. Gabaron

Associate AIA

Anhong Li

Associate AIA

David R. Gebhardt

AIA

Xiaoye Li

Associate AIA

Lovejeet Gehlot

Associate AIA

Ronald S. Lincoln

AIA

Eric L. Geiser

AIA

William P. Lindhout

AIA Member Emeritus

Kristina A. Glusac

AIA

Zhipeng Liu

Associate AIA

Scott M.B. Gustafson

AIA

Zhiyu Liu

Associate AIA

Sharon H. Haar

FAIA

Kunshi Liu

Associate AIA

Todd W. Hallett

AIA

Carl F. Luckenbach

FAIA Member Emeritus

Andrew G. Hauptman

AIA

Donald D. MacMullan

AIA Member Emeritus

Alison M. Haynes

Associate AIA

Jennifer L. Maigret

AIA

Joshua L. Hendershot

AIA

Diane M. McIntyre

AIA

Richard L. Henes

AIA Member Emeritus

Julia H. McMorrough

AIA

Henry J. Henrichs

AIA

David C. Milling

AIA Member Emeritus

Jennifer K. Henriksen

AIA

Cara C. Mitchell

AIA

Dwight M. Herdrich

AIA

Stanley J. Monroe

AIA

Russell W. Hinkle

AIA

Kelsey Montgomery

AIA

John J. Hinkley

AIA

J. Bradley Moore

AIA

William S. Hobbs

AIA

George A. Morkos

Associate AIA

Scott T. Hoeft

AIA

Keerti Nair

Associate AIA

Eugene C. Hopkins

FAIA

Karin L. Neubauer

AIA

Carl O. Hueter

AIA

Michael P. Nicklowitz

AIA

Van R. Hunsberger

AIA

Jason R. Nolff

AIA

Benedict D. Ilozor

Associate AIA

M. Celeste Novak

FAIA Member Emeritus

James S. Jacobs

AIA

Kristen A. Nyht

AIA

William L. James

AIA Member Emeritus

Tiannuo Ouyang

Associate AIA

Sponsors & Members

Seth Penchansky

AIA

Nicole Wallace

Associate AIA

Shannon Riley Perry

AIA

Keith F. Weiland

AIA Member Emeritus

David D. Pezda

AIA

L. Welch

AIA Member Emeritus

Lincoln A. Poley

AIA

Donald Wesley

AIA

Philip S. Proefrock

AIA

Daniel E. Whisler

AIA

Jessica G. Quijano

Associate AIA

Ernesto Whitsitt

AIA

Richard J. Reinholt

AIA Member Emeritus

Ajae M. Whittaker

Associate AIA

Richard J.P. Renaud

AIA

Edwin R. Wier

AIA

Brenda Rigdon

AIA

Lanette V. Williams

Associate AIA

Connie Rizzolo Brown

AIA

Stephen M. Wilson

AIA

Pat M. Roach

AIA

Andrew Wolking

AIA

David B. Rochlen

AIA

Jeannette M. Woodard

AIA

Ariadne R. Rodriguez-Boog

AIA

Heather M. Woodcock

Associate AIA

Marc M. Rueter

AIA

Jacob B. Wright

AIA

Keith W. Russeau

AIA

Chuchu Wu

Associate AIA

Warren A. Samberg

AIA

Walter P. Wyderko

AIA

Robert S. Saxon

AIA

Robert L. Yurk

AIA

Bonnie Jean Scheffler

AIA

Kun Zhang

Associate AIA

Tamara J. Schoener

Associate AIA

Jun Zhou

Associate AIA

Rebecca A. Selter

AIA

Dawn Zuber

FAIA

Elizabeth Sensoli

Associate AIA

E. James Zwolensky

AIA

Wayne G. Sieloff

AIA

Shaun P. Smith

AIA

Karen Lee Souders

AIA

Jon M. Stevens

AIA

Morley S. Stevenson

AIA

Michael R. Strother

AIA

Lindsey M. Suardini

AIA

Imman Suleiman

Associate AIA

Xinlu Sun

Associate AIA

David A. Teare

AIA

Benjamin Telian

AIA

Ronald L. Thomas

AIA

Brian K. Threet

AIA

Anita M. Toews

AIA Member Emeritus

Ellison B. Turpin

Associate AIA

Ilene R. Tyler

FAIA Member Emeritus

Michael T. Van Goor

AIA

Adriaan N. Van Velden

Associate AIA

Elizabeth K. Vandermark

AIA

Albert J. Vegter

AIA Member Emeritus

Ekaterina Velikov

AIA

Aaron J. Vermeulen

AIA

John L. Wacksmuth

AIA Member Emeritus

95