Chicago architect Jeanne Gang of Studio Gang received the 2016 Architect of the Year award from Architectural Review, the UK-based journal.
Gang, founder and principal of Studio Gang, was nominated for the award for the design of the Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership in Kalamazoo, Mich.
“Inclusion, openness and dialogue resonate throughout Studio Gang’s Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership,” Architectural Review said in announcing the prize.
“Studio Gang’s Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership is at once modest, at only 930m², and in the same breath a bold statement about how architecture can influence the discourse around one of the United States’ most pressing issues.”
Opened at the beginning of the 2014-2015 school year, the center hosts a variety of functions, events and programs for the college and the community. “Its mission is no less than to bring the activities of social justice planning and leadership—which historically took place in the basements of churches and around the kitchen tables of housing projects and tenements—and give them a public, open forum,” Architectural Review said.
As a learning environment and meeting space, the Arcus Center “brings together students, faculty, visiting scholars, social justice leaders, and members of the public for conversation and activities aimed at creating a more just world,” Studio Gang says in a narrative, photo array and video on the project at Arcus Center.
Jeanne Gang. Credit: Studio Gang
“Supporting this important work, the center’s design is visually open and activated by daylight. The plan encourages convening in configurations that begin to break down psychological and cultural barriers between people and help facilitate understanding.”
The Arcus Center also received two Design Awards from AIA Chicago—the Distinguished Building Award and the Divine Detail Award.
Other notable projects for Gang and Studio Gang include the WMS Boathouse at Clark Park, the Nature Boardwalk at Lincoln Park Zoo, and Aqua Tower.
Projects currently under way for Jeanne Gang include an expansion of the American Museum of Natural History in New York, high-rise towers in San Francisco, New York and Chicago, a strategic plan for the National Aquarium in Baltimore, and the Fire Rescue2 training facility in Brooklyn, N.Y.
“Jeanne is recognized internationally for her bold and functional designs that incorporate ecologically friendly technologies in a wide range of striking structures,” Studio Gang says in a biographical summary.
