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Awards celebrate architecture in Valley

Posted at 10:14 AM on Sunday, Jan. 31, 2010

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Architects are an interesting breed. I had one for a roommate in college. He'd stay up crazy hours, kept his side of the room meticulous, mocked our dorm for being the ugliest building on campus and once thoroughly embarrassed me in the dining hall by setting up all the broccoli on his plate as if it were a tree-lined Champs-Elysées.

He was a good guy, but I always thought of him as being from a slightly different planet.

I tended to think of designing buildings as, well, technical, compared to my arts and culture tendencies. I thought of architecture as a science -- a skill so specialized that my opinion on the subject wasn't really valid.

Over the years, I've changed my mind.

We're all architecture critics, each and every one of us.

Last week I went through an experience that made me realize just how much. The San Joaquin chapter of the American Institute of Architects asked me to serve as a juror for its biannual design awards. Member architects from the chapter submitted designs for buildings -- some local, some out of town. It was up to me and three eminent architects, all from out of the area, to award the prizes.

As we plowed through the more than 25 entries, I realized many of these nominated buildings were part of my everyday routine.

And I was passionate in my opinions of them.

I'm sure the same applies to most readers as well. Think about the buildings you drive by every day. Are there some that just make you feel good? Ones that inspire in you a sense of solidness, of authority, of warmth? Do some make you cringe? (There's one at the southwest corner of Herndon Avenue and Fresno Street -- some sort of medical building adorned with cheap-looking plastic -- that annoys me so much I've considered getting out of the car and slapping it.)

My fellow jurors and I talked a lot about things like vision, clarity, suitability and regional distinctiveness.

It's a tough job to design a building, no question about it, especially if you want to give it some character. The architect has to take into consideration the budget, neighborhood and function of the project. He or she has to balance the needs of the owner vs. the needs of a user.

I was impressed with the creativity and artistic prowess demonstrated by many of the competition architects. Take the top two awards we gave for excellence, for example, both given to the local powerhouse firm of Darden Architects. The new gym at Riverbank High School is an impressive blend of sophistication and small-town charm. The name of the school's mascot, the Bruins, is emblazoned in huge letters on the glass wall next to the main entrance. Inside, 20 individual louvered skylights provide a daytime ambience. The new building fits well into the master plan of the existing campus.

The other award for excellence, for the Alex G. Spanos Elementary School in Stockton, recognizes an outstanding campus design that stands out and yet complements the surrounding neighborhood of older Craftsmen-style homes.

The school's "skyline" is inviting and the proximity to the street makes it seem as if it's embracing the local area, not barricading itself away from it. Of all the schools we judged, it was the one that I and my other judges agreed would be the one we'd want to go to every day.

Beyond the actual judging, what I enjoyed most as a juror was getting to know some of the local architects in town. Like I said, they're an interesting breed: funny, conscientious, diligent. And a little quirky, sure. Artists are like that.

Hardworking yet often ignored by the public at large, architects provide a vital service in society. Buildings last for many years, after all.

At the awards dinner, where I got to help hand out the awards, the master of ceremonies told one of those "Top 10" jokes about how you know you're an architecture student. One of the items: If you contemplate using a piece of broccoli on your models as a tree.

Some things never change.

Correction: The site of a winning school-gymnasium architecture project was previously identified incorrectly. The building is in Riverbank, not Riverdale. Also, a caption incorrectly described the accompanying image as an artist's rendering. It is a photograph.