The centerpiece of the Oklahoma Contemporary campus earned one of three AIA Honor Awards — the top award for architecture– at AIA Central Oklahoma’s recent awards gala. Merit and Citation awards were also presented.
The Honor Award was for Excellence in Craft.
The building required craft at the highest level, inside and out, starting with a show-stopping façade made of extruded recycled aluminum. Nine geometric variations interlock to wrap the building with 16,800 “fins.”
While draining rainwater, the building skin holds light (“light-bending,” as Architectural Digest put it). It responds to the Oklahoma sky with an ever-changing palette of colors and moods with a burnished glow.
The AIA Awards Jury:
“The façade is articulated with varying levels of porosity which are evident as a spectrum from exterior to interior. The enclosure responds to the environment with a poetic rhythm, enhancing the tactile quality of the building to humanize the scale of the building and activating the building in a masterful way.
The detail of the facade works at multiple scales, creating kaleidoscopic reflections at a distance to glow at the micro scale.”
– AIA Central Oklahoma Awards Jury –
The detail of the facade works at multiple scales, creating kaleidoscopic reflections at a distance to glow at the micro-scale.”
This is the 19th award Rand Elliott Architects has earned for Oklahoma Contemporary architecture.
Watch for more on “Detailing Folding Light.” The Black Box Theater, Ceremonial Stair, classrooms, dance studio and other features. All tell a tale of Excellence in Craft.
REA TEAM: Rand Elliott, Bill Yen, Cody Pistulka, Austin McKiel
