On December 6, in New York City, six jurors convened to parse the merits of the more than 250 projects submitted to AN‘s first annual Best Of Design Awards. The jury included Kate Orff, principal of SCAPE; Thomas Hanrahan, dean of architecture at the Pratt Institute and principal of Hanrahan Meyers Architects; Wes Rozen, principal, Situ Studio; Mic Patterson, partner, Enclos; Dan Wood, principal, WorkAC; and AN‘s own William Menking. Over the next several days we will be posting their selections in six categories, starting with  

“This project suggests something beyond just sculpture.”
—Mic Patterson

“It looks robust.”
—Wes Rozen

Best Fabrication: Honorable Mention

Centennial Chromagraph
Minneapolis, MN
Variable Projects

Centennial Chromagraph is a life-size representation of the University of Minnesota, School of Architecture’s hundred-year history. The installation consists of 100 robotically routed plywood ribs, joined together with 8,080 colorful #2 pencils. The curvature of the ribs expresses major historical eras and periods of the school—the tenures of school leadership, the buildings the program has occupied, and the colleges architecture has belonged to—while the color of the pencils reflects the changing composition of the School’s degree programs over its first century.

Best Fabrication: Honorable Mention

The Octahedron
Seattle, Washington
LMN Architects

The Octahedron grew out of LMN’s desire to highlight the expanding role of computation in architectural design. This object is inhabitable. During the course of the Seattle Design Festival spectators interacted with the Octahedron by drawing on it with chalk.