Three BNIM Projects Receive Coveted American Architecture Awards

Last week, the Chicago Athenaeum and the European Centre of Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies named its American Architecture Awards for 2017. Three BNIM projects were among the 79 entries receiving recognition: The Pacific Center Campus Development includes a new building—the Amenities Building—that transformed the sense of (work)place for a Fortune 500 company in San Diego, Calif.; American Enterprise Group National Headquarters is a sensitive renovation/adaptation of a 1965 Gordon Bunshaft/SOM building in Des Moines, Iowa; the Visual Arts Building at the University of Iowa was the result of a BNIM collaboration with Steven Holl Associates in Iowa City, Iowa.

"Everyone at BNIM is excited and honored that we have been recognized with three American Architecture Awards, including one we share with Steven Holl Architects," says Steve McDowell, CEO of BNIM. "We see this program as especially important because, like our own practice, it is interdisciplinary—addressing architecture, landscape architecture and planning. Through all those lenses, BNIM is Building Positive—designing for positive outcomes."

A jury of Greek architects and cultural leaders met in Athens to review a shortlist of 300 American-designed new works of architecture, landscape architecture, and urban design/planning, and named 79 as the crop of winners for 2017. A gala event will take place during the American Institute of Architects' Conference on Architecture in Orlando this month. BNIM's Rod Kruse and Carey Nagle are presenting the American Enterprise Group project at A'17 and will be available for interviews on site.

McDowell notes that this year's American Architecture Awards Greek jury deliberated in Athens. "Perhaps they were inspired by the deep roots of culture and architecture of that city," he says. "That context makes this honor even greater. Site-specific cultural and design heritage inform the ideas behind every project we touch."