Websites

Feature

Gold Medal
Venturi, Scott Brown Associates

Honor Award
Stoss

Honor Award
ADD Inc.

Honor Award
New York Institute for Architecture

Honor Award
Olson Sundberg Kundig Allen Architects

Merit Award
Kajioka Yamachi Architects

Merit Award
Marlon Blackwell

Merit Award
The Office of Michael Rosenfeld

Merit Award
Hamilton Anderson Associates

Most Innovative Site
Edge Studio

Best Interactive Site
BAR Architects

Best Visual Design
Studio Works, Harvard Design School

Student Gold Medal
Bobby Wei

Student Honor Award
Digital DOA

Student Honor Award
Solar Decathlon Team (University of Virginia)

Student Merit Award
Jon Geib

Student Merit Award
Peter Greiffenhagen

Ciel Rouge

Graftworks Architecture + Design

CCAC Architectural Studies

BKSK Architects

OPX

Duda Paine Architects

Griffin Enright Architects

Kieran Timberlake Associates

Lauck Group

Sienna Architecture

Bauer Architecture

FROMFORM

Ellerbe Becket

Little Diversified Architectural Consulting

Anshen + Allen

Atmosphere

University of Nebraska College of Architecture

MZA Architects

KD Lab

Duffy Mitchell O'Donoghue Architects

Rice Daubney

Venturi, Scott Brown Associates Receives
Top Honor in 2003 Architecture Web Site Awards

The visually captivating website for the firm Venturi, Scott Brown Associates was awarded the Gold Medal in this year's Architecture Web Site Awards program. With 116 websites entered by architecture firms and students from countries around the world, the jury had an arduous task reviewing all of the sites. In the end, the sites that rose to the top were the most absorbing and best organized, with features that encouraged the viewer to probe deeper into the site.

Kriss Pettersen, editor of Entablature.com and organizer of the Web Site Awards, said, "This is our second year of hosting the website awards and we continue to be impressed with the wide variety of approaches taken by architecture firms and students in which to display their work. The overall high quality of the entries made the jury's task very challenging." The awards were determined by Erik Hemingway, Jane Felsen-Gertler, Bart Overly and Karle Packard representing different perspectives in architecture: design, marketing, academic, and business. The judges reviewed each web site entered and assigned scores for visual design, content, organization and interactivity. Kriss Pettersen then tabulated the scores to determine which sites received awards.

Venturi, Scott Brown Associates' redesigned website (www.vsba.com) was produced by Picture-Projects, a New York City-based design studio using new media technologies. "The VSBA site pokes fun at the now banal 'banner ads' and structure of the web in typical Venturi, Scott Brown fashion," said Bart Overly. "It is a true interpretation of the firm's work, writing and research in yet another medium." Jane Felsen Gertler praised the unique retro-feel of the web site, applauding its "innovative, all-inclusive content and fun interactivity." Karle Packard agreed, praising the site's substantial content displayed in a "funky, different manner."

Four Honor Awards were given, the first to Stoss (www.stoss.net) for what Karle Packard called "innovation - where the site's presentation supports its content." Bart Overly described the site as such: "With the web becoming increasingly ubiquitous in daily life, well-designed sites make you want to explore and dig deeper into what the intentions of the studio are all about. This is such a site. The navigation is clever in the way it exposes you to information with an innovative project display." ADD Inc. (www.addinc.com) also received an Honor Award as it was praised by Bart Overly for a site "very beautifully done . . dense with content." Jane Felsen Gertler "loved navigating the site - it was smooth, flowed well, with little to no delay." The New York Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies (www.institute-ny.org) received an Honor Award for their site which Bart Overly described as having a "clean and cool interface that is absorbing to visit." Erik Hemingway liked the use of Flash to generate "an experiential, interactive and fluid trajectory creating a compelling professional simulation." The fourth Honor Award was given to Olson Sundberg Kundig Allen Architects (www.olsonsundberg.com). Bart Overly liked the site's creative navigation with an interface that allows the user to quickly move around the site.

Four Merit Awards were also given, the first to Kajioka Yamachi Architects (www.kyarch.com) for what Bart Overly called "a strong design that allows the spirit of the firm to come across clearly." Marlon Blackwell (www.marlonblackwell.com) was awarded a Merit Award for its "videogame mentality of hunting for content." With tongue in cheek, Bart Overly also "wished it kept score." The Office of Michael Rosenfeld (www.omr-architects.com) received a Merit Award for a site with "an interesting mix and interplay of images" according to Jane Felsen Gertler. The fourth Merit Award was given to Hamilton Anderson Associates (www.hamilton-anderson.com). Jane Felsen Gertler especially liked the site's interactivity of sounds.

The Most Innovative Site Award was given to Edge Studio (www.edge-studio.com) for a site "that breathes." Bart Overly also praised the site for its simple beauty, contrasting its 'soft' feel with the firm's name. The Best Interactive Site award went to BAR Architects (www.bararchitects.com) for its "nervous people". Bart Overly thought the site "carries across the message that its a fast-moving, high-energy firm." Karle Packard commented that the site was "highly interactive, making aexcellent use of the medium." The Best Visual Design Award was given to Studio Works at the Harvard Design School (http://studioworks.gsd.harvard.edu) for its "visually polished" site, according to Karle Packard. Bart Overly added, "the interface is clear and simple, and floats through studio projects in fun ways - a wonderful 'machine' for showing off beautiful student work."

Awards were also given to web sites entered in the Student category. Overall, Erik Hemingway thought that a majority of the student entries pushed the envelope in a more compelling and creative direction, whereas the majority of the professional entries were held back by conventional, two dimensional templates. The Student Gold Medal was awarded to Bobby Wei(www.bb8.net). Karle Packard found his site to be "visually strong and innovative." Two Student Honor Awards were given, the first to Digital DOA (www.digital-doa.com) for what Bart Overly considered a "great thought-provoking site with a well-thought-out interface." The other Student Honor Award went to the Solar Decathlon Team at the University of Virginia (http://solarhome.lib.virginia.edu). Bart Overly said this site was "the first site I have seen using goats as navigation. What is more innovative and technically challenging is the way the site builds up the structure in an educating way. The site uses flash well for creating entertaining content information in ways few sites do; not just for 'Flash'." Two Student Merit Awards were given, one to Jon Geib for his website, Slow Metaphor (www.slowmetaphor.com). Bart Overly liked the "hydroglyph/morse-code-like navigation and the site's simplicity of moving between main content." The other Student Merit Award went to Peter Greiffenhagen (www.greiffen.de) for a well-designed site with a simple navigation system.

Overall the jurors were impressed with the entries. Karle Packard noted that it was somewhat "reassuring that architectural sites tend to be better designed than the average website." However, he also found that "most architecture firms seem to lapse into patter about 'innovative science and interactive design process' or the like. The lists of awards and slick photos of projects often ended up merging into a sea of inconsequence." Bart Overly thought that the websites entered "showed off the web's ability to capture the energy of the work going on. The increasing use of Flash is great to see, but best when it is used because of its inherent strengths in communicating graphic/vector information or innovative navigation and not just because 'everything moves around'." One of the most interesting sites which did not receive an award was that of Ciel Rouge (http://cielrouge.com). Jane Felsen Gertler, along with the other judges, found the site compelling but frustartingly slow: it took too long to load, even with a fast internet connection. Its visual delights made it worth the wait, but ultimately were not enough to overcome its speed limitations in the final tally. Erik Hemingway appreciated the web sites that took into account how the site would load with a 56K connection, but as the majority of internet users transition to network, cable and DSL connections, this limitation in the use of flash and other highly interactive features may no longer be an issue in the future.

Links to juror's sites:

Erik Hemingway Hemingway + A/Studio

Jane Felsen Gertler The Spector Group

Bart Overly Blostein-Overly / The Ohio State University

Karle Packard Red Hawk Studio

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