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2019 Best of Design Awards winners for Cultural

Culture Vultures

2019 Best of Design Awards winners for Cultural

2019 Best of Design Award for Cultural: Menil Drawing Institute

Designer: Johnston Marklee
Location: Houston

The Menil Drawing Institute, sited within the 30-acre Menil Collection campus, is the first freestanding museum building in the United States dedicated to the exhibition, study, storage, and conservation of modern and contemporary drawings. The project mandated space for the care, study, and display of works on paper with strict conservation requirements as well as flexible space for conferences and intimate rooms for research and exhibition. The low-lying profile distinguishes the structure, which is integrated within the campus fabric of buildings and gardens. Under extended canopies, the two courtyard entrances create a cooling garden threshold between the institute and the campus that, together with branching trees and porous ground cover, diffuses sunlight in and around the building.

Landscape Architect: Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates
Structural Engineer: Guy Nordenson and Associates with Cardno Haynes Whaley
MEP Engineer: Stantec
Lighting Engineer: George Sexton Associates
Civil Engineer: Lockwood, Andrews & Newnam

Honorable Mentions

Project Name: NY State Equal Rights Heritage Center
Designer: nARCHITECTS

Three boxy brick volumes buried in snow
Cultural: Honorable Mention: NY State Equal Rights Heritage Center (James Ewing/OTTO)

Project Name: Ruby City
Designer: Adjaye Associates

A low-slung, angular red building
Cultural: Honorable Mention: Ruby City (Courtesy Adjaye Associates)

Editors’ Picks

Project Name: The Evans Tree House at Garvan Woodland Gardens
Designer: modus studio

Project Name: St. Mary Chapel
Designer: PLY+

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