WASHINGTON, DC--(July 17, 2009) The Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA) is pleased to announce the winners of the PRESERVATION AS PROVOCATION: RE-THINKING KAHN'S SALK INSTITUTE, International Student Design Competition. Administered by ACSA and sponsored by The American Institute of Architects, Historic Resources Committee (AIA HRC), the program challenged students to envision the preservation of Louis H. Kahn’s Salk Institute while rethinking current conventions about composition, construction, and building performance. The goal was to envision a new type of facility that would be unimaginable without the existing structures.

During the weekend of July 11, 2009, the design jury convened in Washington, DC to select the winning projects for the “Re-thinking Kahn’s Salk Institute” student competition. The three-person jury, composed of 2009 chair of the AIA Historic Resources Committee David Woodcock, Texas A&M, Mehrdad Hadighi, SUNY at Buffalo, and Kiel Moe, Northeastern University, awarded a first place winner and five honorable mentions. The decision to award five Honorable Mentions demonstrated the jury’s belief that the First Place team was indeed the most “comprehensive” while recognizing significant unique merits in each of the five other schemes. The 122 entries revealed a great interest in the challenge of adding to an iconic building complex, with schemes being submitted from around the globe.

The jurors were impressed by the overall quality of the submissions and agreed that the challenge of designing and building in the context of an iconic building of the 20th century represents a worthy endeavor. "The most interesting proposals allowed us to understand the Salk Institute in a way that we could not have before seeing the scheme," said Mehrdad Hadighi.

The winning projects will be on display at the ACSA Annual Meeting in New Orleans, March 2010 and at the American Institute of Architects National Convention in Miami, June 2010. In addition, the projects will be published in an online Competition Summary Website in fall 2009.

 

• First Place: "Looking into the Distance"
  Students: Brian Bedrosian and William Huie
  Faculty Sponsor: David Heymann
  University of Texas at Austin
  
  Juror comments: This is the most comprehensive submission, possessing a clear organizational scheme and a strong physical connection to the existing Kahn building. From a preservation standpoint, this design is both complimentary and complementary to Kahn’s design but in a new and different way. The architectural form draws on Kahn’s use of materials and light and the proposal draws better attention to Kahn’s work without copying it. The scheme would also perform very well environmentally, and programmatically it ties into the way the existing labs are used and maintained, which is critical to the way the Salk Institute is currently used. This was one of the few proposals that conducted a thorough and critical analysis of the programmatic construct of Kahn’s Salk in relation to the labs and the service zones.

 

Honorable Mentions
The jury thought that the following projects had compelling aspects and that the designs presented the Salk Institute and its landscape in a new and provocative way.

• Honorable Mention: "Parts to Whole: Expanding the Serial Front of Louis Kahn's Salk Institute"
  Students: Justin Hui, Gary Huafan He, & Justin Chu
  Faculty Sponsor: Jerry Wells
  Cornell University
  
  Juror comments: The high-quality and clarity of this representation allowed us to understand the experiential quality of the design. The tectonic qualities described in the diagram of the parts show a clear connection to Kahn’s work but the fragmented nature of the final proposal does not present the counterpart to the existing Salk.

• Honorable Mention: "Aerated Concrete"
  Student: Chenxi Hu
  Faculty Sponsor: Erik M. Hemingway
  University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
  
  Juror comments: The project provoked a discussion of radicalizing the man made and the green landscape. Ideas of inventing new ways of constructing with concrete were appreciated. The fundamental provocation of this project to is to engage the dialogue between the two landscape proposals of the built Kahn-Barragán courtyard, with an earlier proposal by Kahn and Halprin.

• Honorable Mention : "Into the Light: (re)Discovery at The Salk"
  Student: Clayton Adkisson
  Faculty Sponsor: William E. Martella
  University of Tennessee-Knoxville
  
  Juror comments: The site strategy is interesting but the most provocative piece of this proposal is the renderings that put together the material sensibilities of concrete water and light and gave us a sense of the quality of the spaces you would expect. The sumbission is well presented, well explained, demonstrating an understanding of Kahn’s original building through materiality.
  

• Honorable Mention: "Completing the Loop for Kahn's Salk Institute"
  Student: Daniel Ankri
  Faculty Sponsosr: Garth Rockcastle and B.D. Wortham-Galvin
  University of Maryland
  
  Juror comments: Very successful site strategy that connects the Anshen + Allen addition to the original institute to form a second courtyard that would have been more powerful without unconsidered landscape. The use of landscape to close off the central axis on the street is a wise decision as it terminates that axis. The lateral section through the north-south courtyard and labs is well developed and builds on Kahn’s thinking and is enhanced by the diagrams showing the environmental performance aspects.
  

• Honorable Mention: "Embedded"
  Student: Janak Alford
  Faculty Sponsor: Annette Homann
  Carleton University
  
  Juror comments: The decision to develop on the south side of the Salk Institute, with a long processional way strongly defined by a new architectural element of “the wall,” broken in places by a colonnade provides a way of connecting the campus community center with architectural linkages to some of Kahn’s concepts and continue the procession to residential facilities, which would have a unique view back over the ravine to the coast at La Jolla.