Feature Project
Association of College Unions International
2006 Excellence in Masonry
Design Awards Banquet
Ambia Takes Home 3 Awards!
Ambia attended the Masonry Institute of Washington's awards banquet on November 26, 2006. They took their place in a competitive field of top architectural firms. Both the Center for the Arts Building at South Puget Sound Community College, and Lilly Road Medical Office Building received a Merit Award early on in the ceremony. The prestigious People's Choice Award was the last award, and the most anticipated award of the evening. Ambia's Center for Arts Building was selected for this top honor by the architectural firms present at the banquet.
Lilly Road Medical Office Building
Olympia, WA
The Lilly Road Medical Office Building, located in Olympia, Washington, is a 48,000 SF facility. Ambia completed the preliminary rendering for the facility. The shell and core were completed mid 2005, and is currently 80% occupied. All but one of the tenant improvements were designed and construction documents prepared by Ambia.
Center for the Arts Building
South Puget Sound Community College
Olympia, WA
The Center for the Arts building is located at the entrance of South Puget Sound Community College, Olympia, Washington. It has created a new dramatic front door for the campus, while strengthening the core design textures and material, which are well established at South Puget Sound Community College. Housing several programs including Drama, Music and Art, as well as providing faculty office and general classroom spaces, the pride of the building is it's 500-seat theater with full fly loft. Developed to be a teaching space as well as a state-of-the-art college theater, the auditorium will be used not only by the drama and music programs, but by the community as well.
The building is designed such that community events in the auditorium, as well as regularly scheduled classes, can occur at the same time without concern for security of accessibility. The building form, driven by the large volume auditorium, rehearsal and choral spaces, is simple and elegant, with references to masonry performing arts centers of the past, while maintaining modern sensibilities and seamlessly incorporating 21st century technology.
Association of College Unions International
Ambia Wins National Award!
Student Union and Recreation Center
Central Washington University
Ellensburg, WA
The Student Union Building and Recreation Center at Central Washington University is an undeniable success. At 228,000 GSF the combination of services and amenities now available to the entire university community are re-defining campus culture. This project has truly established itself as the heart of student life.
The facility is organized around an interior pedestrian mall which provides direct visual connectivity between many of the uses in the building as well as linking the main campus pedestrian corridor with the eastern gateway to the University, residence halls and substantial parking areas. The mall also serves as a place for club activities, craft fairs, education fairs, and promotional events along with informal gathering.
While conceived by students, directed by students and funded by students, the facility also represents a fusion of partners involving all levels of the University Community.
Located at the heart of campus, the committee agreed that the overall facility design needed to address not only how the project would respect the existing fabric of the university but also its relevance to the Kittitas valley and the distinctive rural vernacular. Key to the success of the building was the effective knitting together of union and recreation spaces and activities physically and visually. Within the facility, the combination, or fusion, of recreation and union components of student life is expressed most clearly in the integration of the hearth/fireplace and the climbing wall, placed at the center of the facility along the main student circulation spine.
The materials palette was purposefully limited from the inception of the project in order to further the language of buildings developed on campus, including the incorporation of brick masonry as the primary exterior material. A norman brick was utilized in response to the building’s scale and porcelain tile provided color and accent. The landscaping incorporated plant life and trees indigenous to the area and integrated them a flowing creek bed and basalt rock columns transported from the Coulee Dam region north of Ellensburg. The facility is truly synergetic and continues to positively influence our campus culture.
