11 Southland Projects Win AIA Design Awards

A multifamily row house in San Diego, a Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant in Hollywood and a church building in Glendale are among 11 Southern California winners in the 1991 design awards program of the California Council of the American Institute of Architects.

The awards were presented at the 10th Monterey Design Conference on the Monterey Peninsula as part of the California Council’s celebration of Architecture Week earlier this month.

There were 20 awards statewide, out of 349 entrants. Eight of the Southern California winners earned top awards; three won merits.

Among the Southern California winners were a Venice beach house, designed by Albuquerque architect Antoine Predock, with a 9-by-13-foot, red-framed window, and the beaux-arts- style North Range building of UCLA’s William Andrews Clark Memorial Library near downtown Los Angeles, designed by Barton Phelps & Associates of Los Angeles.

Both projects also won awards last fall from the Los Angeles chapter of the AIA.

Another top state and local winner was Frank O. Gehry & Associates of Santa Monica, which was cited for designing a furniture manufacturing facility and design museum in Weil am Rhine, Germany.

Other top awards in the statewide contest went to architect Jonathan Segal of San Diego for a series of seven row houses on a so-called “throw-away” site in downtown San Diego and Grinstein/Daniels of Culver City for a Kentucky Fried Chicken at Western and Oakwood avenues in Hollywood.

“You don’t need a sign,” the jury commented about the fast-food restaurant design. “The building is the sign.”

An image of Colonel Sanders on top of the two-story building greets street traffic, as customers order at a drive-through window or dine at a counter or upstairs, where food is delivered by a dumbwaiter.

Moore Ruble Yudell of Santa Monica also won a top award for its design of the First Church of Christ, Scientist building in Glendale. The facility was designed around a courtyard with an existing ash that is one of the largest trees along the street.

A top award also went to LPA Inc. of Irvine for One Venture, an office building in Irvine that was cited for its use of shadow and light. The jury described the design as “an extension of California modernism.”

Special recognition for interiors accompanied a top award won by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill of Los Angeles for designing the Solana Marriott Hotel in Westlake, Tex. Handcrafted furnishings were chosen to complement the functional mood of each room in the hotel.

Among the Southern California architects receiving merit awards were Steven Ehrlich of Venice for the Ehrman-Coombs residence in Santa Monica, Rob Wellington Quigley of San Diego for a four-story building providing housing for San Diego’s working poor, and David Lawrence Gray of Los Angeles for his rehab of the Sunset Towers, now known as the St. James’ Club. Gray’s award was given “with special recognition for restoration.”

Quigley also earned a “People in Architecture” Award for designing a project that provides an outstanding response to user needs.