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Winners of the 2021 AIA Small Project Awards announced

2021-06-25T12:11:00-04:00

The American Institute of Architects (AIA) has unveiled the eleven winning projects for the 2021 edition of the AIA Small Projects Awards. Now in its eighteenth year, the awards were established by the Small Project Design (SPD) Knowledge Community to “recognize small-project practitioners for the high quality of their work.” The initiative also seeks to raise awareness of the value and excellence that architects can apply to projects regardless of size, brief, or scope.

The eleven winners are spread across three categories. Below, we have set out the winning entries, along with a description excerpt. For full details on the winning projects, visit the AIA’s official website here. You can also recap previous winners of the Small Project Awards through our coverage in 2020 and 2019.

Category 1

Small project construction, an architectural object, work of environmental art or an architectural design element that costs up to $150,000 in construction.

Casa de Baño (Bathhouse), Temasca...

This mushroom-shaped nature retreat offers panoramic vistas

2021-04-02T15:23:00-04:00

Strolling through the woods outside of Xin Yu City in China's eastern Jiangxi Province, one might stumble across a peculiar little cottage: shaped like a cone dropped from one of the surrounding pine trees and sitting slightly elevated from the forest floor, the dwelling begins to blur the line between nature and fabricated shelter.

Photo: Fanfang Tian.

Dubbed The Mushroom, the 50-square-meter (538 square feet) house is composed of two basic, intersecting volumes: "The main part of the mushroom is the guest room space, with a panoramic window set up near the viewing height," as the project description explains. "When sitting on chairs or leaning on the bed, the guests are immersed in the surrounding nature."

Photo: Fanfang Tian.

"The loft serves as a child area, linked by the small-scale stairs. The pure white cone-shaped roof is rounded on top, creating a sense of unbounded extension to the space."

Photo: Fanfang Tian.

"The bathroom and storage ...

FreelandBuck completes Second House, a knotty little home in Culver City

2019-01-15T18:50:00-05:00

In a dense patch of Culver City lies Second House, the newest home built by the Los Angeles and New York-based architecture office of FreelandBuck, run by David Freeland and Brennan Buck. Given the fact that the home is on a small lot without the affordance of views to the nearly Baldwin Hills, the house was designed to turn inward as a means of encouraging dynamic tensions between interior spaces and small courtyards. Taking a moment to read the two floor plans (below) illustrates the complexity achieved within such a small footprint.

Second House Floor Plans. Courtesy of FreelandBuck

Distinctions between interior and exterior spaces are intentionally blurry, but are made a little bit more legible by the choice of materials. Tightveined grey limestone is used on exterior flooring, for instance, while white stained knotty pine is used for interior spaces. The weaving of the two makes exploring the home much more dynamic than one might expect from a two-bedroom home.

Second House,...

MONU #27 on "Small Urbanism" released

2017-10-16T12:39:00-04:00

“… And Though She be but Little, She is Fierce!”, the title of Liz Teston’s contribution using a quote from Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”, captures the content of this MONU issue on “Small Urbanism” very well. For when it comes to urbanism, small things seem to matter, whether they are actions, small physical elements, information and communications technology, or small-scale interventions. With regard to actions, Teston shows how transient micro-urbanisms of protest architecture can have a significant impact on our cities. During such actions, human bodies can alter public spaces through practices that challenge the arrangement of urban power and convert it into a channel of opposition, as Ana Medina argues in her piece “Dissident Micro-occupations”. In her explorations of dissident architectural practices, she reveals that spaces for protests are in fact not designed, but taken over by the dissidents to transform the architectural urban landscape. However, t...

Muji's prefab Vertical House now available for Japanese residences

2014-11-03T15:11:00-05:00

MUJI HOUSE, the architectural entity of Japanese design brand Muji, recently released their latest prefab house in Tokyo called the Vertical House. The slender 3-story structure was primarily designed for urban dwellers living within Tokyo's tight living spaces.

Designed with simple white walls and wooden flooring, the house exhibits the same contemporary minimal aesthetic that Muji's products continue to gain popularity for. The house was built with a timber framework method and an open plan interior with no doors or interior walls. The house also features a kitchen and dining area, a living room, bedroom, bathroom, and large windows that allow for ample sunlight.

Muji isn't entirely new to the prefab house scene. The company worked with prominent Japanese architects like Kengo Kuma for the Window House in 2008 followed by the Tree House in 2009. Muji then worked with Shigeru Ban for the Furniture House during the House Vision 2013 Tokyo Exhibition.

Product details:
Name: Vertical Ho...

What is likely the world’s thinnest home

2012-11-15T22:29:00-05:00

When Mr. Keret, 45, received a call from the architect, he was initially puzzled. “This guy with a very heavy Polish accent said he wanted to make a house in proportion to my stories,” he said. “It sounded like a prank.”

Steven Karutz profiled Keret House, a recently completed example of "experimental architecture" by Jakub Szczesny, a Polish architect. Mr. Szczesny, 39, designed the space for an ideal resident, specifically Israeli writer, Etgar Keret. The architect who belongs to a collective called Centrala, built the house in an incredibly thin gap between two existing buildings.

Why Canada's houses are getting smaller

2012-07-17T12:09:00-04:00

The Milllennials, the generation born from 1983 onwards, enjoyed a childhood free of bunkbeds or even shared bathrooms. Growing up in plush megahomes undoubtedly helped them become, in the words of one author, “self-centred, needy, and entitled with unrealistic work expectations.” Oddly, it also spawned a group of people patently unimpressed with backyards and breakfast nooks.

Small House by Unemori Architects

2012-02-27T18:30:58-05:00

The “Small House” designed by Unemori Architects, is … small. It’s footprint is only 4 by 4 meters and it is 9 meters high. Apparently a family of three lives is this house in Tokyo.

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