COLUMBIA, SC – May 5, 2014 –  Quackenbush Architects + Planners won a prestigious American Institute of Architects South Carolina 2014 Honor Award for its City of Columbia Parks and Recreation Administration Building. The firm also won an AIA SC 2014 Citation Award for its design of the University of South Carolina Softball Stadium at Beckham Field. The awards were presented at the AIA SC’s annual Design Awards Gala, Friday, April 25, at its spring conference in Myrtle Beach at Kingston Plantation. 

Nestled among mature trees on a bluff overlooking Earlewood Park, the new 10,000-square foot Columbia Parks and Recreation Building embodies forward-looking initiatives and addresses the community’s need for both public meeting and private administrative space. A breezeway connects the administrative building to the community building, and a public plaza serves as a focal point between the two. The sustainably designed and natural daylight-focused structures include a plinth veneered in stone as a ground plane and steel pipe columns and a glu-lam wood roof structure.

“This modest building is exactly perfect for its purpose and must be the envy of every Parks and Recreation department on the planet,” noted AIA jury chair Chad Floyd, FAIA, upon presenting the award. “The jury admired the clarity of its form, its use of natural materials and blurring the lines between interior and exterior.”

Completed in 2013, the $6.2 million South Carolina Softball Stadium, which received the Citation Award, is the latest addition to the University of South Carolina Athletic Village. The 1,400-seat stadium features a raised press box, a large cantilevering roof canopy, a 4,000-square-foot batting cage, a home team suite, and enhanced amenities for coaches and student athletes, elements that position South Carolina in the top tier of SEC softball venues. Floyd highlighted the stadium’s strong sense of arrival, heightened by a panoramic view that widens with each approaching step.

Presented each year, the AIA SC awards recognize the very best of architecture in the state, with the aim of honoring design excellence in the profession and increasing public awareness of architectural practice. 

“We’re honored by this recognition, and it reinforces the design values we bring to every project,” said Doug Quackenbush, AIA LEED, AP, President, Quackenbush Architects + Planners. “We’re proud to be able to meet our client’s needs with conscientious and sustainable designs that will have lasting impact.”

Since 2007 the firm has won nine other AIA South Carolina and Columbia chapter awards, as well as four Council of Educational Facilities Planners International awards and one Brick Award.

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