- October 25, 2013
ikon.5 architects Wins AIANY's Award for McGee Art Pavilion
ikon.5 architects has been awarded an Architecture Merit Award by the AIA New York Chapter for McGee Art Pavilion at the School of Art and Design, New York State College of Ceramics. The prestigious award was bestowed at the AIA New York Chapter's Honors and Awards Luncheon held on April 17, 2013 at Cipriani Wall Street where they bestowed their annual awards for Design Excellence.
The art pavilion is designed as a large, ceramic vessel for holding art and light. Unique for its ceramic façade the building is made of unglazed terra cotta tubes that remind the visitor of the unfinished nature of student art work being created inside. The ceramic pavilion engages the passersby as a piece of art and allows them to see inside the exhibition gallery. Student art work is displayed in the exhibition space which is large enough and flexible enough to display contemporary art pieces.
A mezzazine gallery overlooks the two-story addition exhibition hall to give a bird's eye perspective of the three-dimensional work shown below. The mezzanine also connects to the Immersive Gallery that is a black box space for the total immersive display of video and audio art forms. Below the exhibition hall are art studios, expanded media studios, art history classrooms and support spaces.
The expansion is designed to achieve LEED Silver certification through day lighting control in the galleries, low consumption water fixtures and high efficiency heating ventilation and air conditioning systems that include heating the exposed concrete floors of the studios and exhibition spaces.
In addition to the AIA NY awards, the McGee Art Pavilion also won the Chicago Athenaeum International Architecture Award in 2012 and an AIA New York Honor Award in 2012. It was also a finalist in World Architecture News Education Awards in 2012.
ikon.5 architects has garnered many design awards for its projects including numerous awards from the AIA, the Chicago Athenaeum American Architecture Awards and the Chicago Athenaeum International Architecture Awards.
ikon.5 architects are known for their award-winning designs for museums, higher education, libraries, performing arts and corporate offices. Their national practice is based in Princeton, N.J. Recently, ikon.5 architects ranked 4th in Design as cited by ARCHITECT magazine, the official publication of the American Institute of Architects. They were the only New Jersey architecture firm in the Top 10 Design Firms.