Laguna Architectural Guild Names Design Winners

The Laguna Beach Architectural Guild has announced winners of the 1995 design competition, juried by Pasadena architect Don Hensman, Santa Monica landscape architect Pamela Burton and designer Gere Kavanaugh, also of Santa Monica.

Honor awards--the top commendations--were bestowed in four categories to Laguna Beach-based design firms, largely for buildings in Laguna.

Under “projects outside Laguna Beach,” Sumich Design won for the “imaginative” quality of the Stodder residence in Dana Point--a house with a tree growing in the middle--and Morris Skendarian & Associates won for the Naples residence in Long Beach, cited for its “sculptural” facade and well-thought-out treatment of a “tough site.”

Lance Polster & Associates was lauded under the “new residential” category for “taking the commonplace and making it special” in the Maynard residence. In the “on the boards” category (projects in design or construction phases), Horst Architect won for the Alexander residence, which the judges commended for its simplicity. The landscape architecture winner was Robert Truskowski, cited for his dramatic series of outdoor rooms in the Villa Torre Clementina in Cap Martin, France.

Merit awards were won by three firms: Blair Ballard, for the Thornton Residence (new residential); Lopez and Associates for the Smith residence (on the boards), and Robert McGraw for the MacGurn residence in Costa Mesa (projects outside Laguna Beach).

Eight honorable mention awards went to: Slayman Design (interiors); Sumich Design an Fred Briggs (projects outside Laguna Beach); Gregg Abel (new residential); Lopez and Associates and Shubin & Donaldson (on the boards), and Marlo Bartels and Chris Abel (furniture).