2017 AIA Institute Honor Awards - Interior Architecture

The AIA recently revealed the winners of the 2017 AIA Institute Honors Awards, regarded as the profession's highest recognition for outstanding projects in the categories of architecture, interior architecture, and urban design. Out of roughly 700 submissions, a total of 23 winners won honors for 2017. In the Interior Architecture category, the jury (listed below) picked only seven winning projects.

Scroll down to see the Interior Architecture winners. Be on the lookout for the Urban Design winners! And if you haven't seen them yet, the Architecture category winners are here.

Pinterest HQ; San Francisco, CA
IwamotoScott Architecture with Brereton Architects 

"The new Pinterest headquarters is inspired by the redesign of the company's web platform — clean, simple, intuitive. It occupies a concrete structure in the SOMA district that previously housed a John Deer factory. A key aspect of the design extends the existing atrium through to the ground floor, spatially connecting all four floors. The Knitting Stair occupies this newly-activated heart of the building. The workspace program is organized as porous, concentric layers around the atrium and Knitting Stair, opening up to the city at the ground floor’s lobby, café, all-hands space and maker lab."

30 Rockefeller Plaza: 65th Floor, Rainbow Room, SixtyFive; New York, NY 
Gabellini Sheppard Associates; Associate Firm: Montroy Andersen DeMarco 

"Gabellini Sheppard Associates opened a new chapter for the 13,160-square-foot Rainbow Room and 65th floor, blending contemporary needs with design that rekindled the room’s original Art Deco-inspired spirit and radiant notoriety of 1934. In the Rainbow Room, the revitalization of the rotating dance floor, addition of mesmerizing crystal window veils, and restoration of the chandelier and central dome, reinforce the modern-day grandeur. In Bar SixtyFive, a faceted ceiling composed of glass-reinforced gypsum panels anchor the space, reinterpreting the open-air height the room once had as a sun parlor."

General Motors Design Auditorium; Detroit, MI
SmithGroupJJR 

"In 1956, the General Motors styling team moved from Detroit to a new design space. The complex, originally designed by Eero Saarinen, has become a legendary corporate master piece of planning and design. For SmithGroupJJR, the overall design intent was to modernize the facility but to do so in a manner consistent with the original Saarinen detailing. Technologies of materials, lighting and audio/visual have progressed dramatically and the revised Design Dome is now poised for General Motors to re-establish the relevance of this significant space for the design community."

George Washington University, Milken Institute School of Public Health; Washington, D.C.
Payette; Associate Firm: Ayers Saint Gross 

"Located on iconic Washington Circle Park in the heart of the nation’s capital, this School of Public Health is a rigorous, innovative response to site and program. With its most sustainable solutions so deeply embedded as to be nearly indistinguishable, it keenly demonstrates the symbiotic relationship between sustainability and public health. The building’s unusual skylit atrium, in which classrooms and study areas overlook the city through an open latticework of floor openings, invites exploration and discovery. The building supports a highly effective learning and interaction environment that is equally memorable for its intimacy and transparency."

In Situ; San Francisco, CA
Aidlin Darling Design 

"Located in the recently reopened San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMoMA), In Situ represents a unique intersection of art, design, food and community. The restaurant features a curated collection of culinary innovators from around the world to make their contributions accessible for greater public engagement. Its design operates at many scales from urban to the intimate, and is intended to engage all of the senses with an emphasis on tactility and acoustics. The exposed interior shell of the building provides a backdrop for discreetly placed "artifacts" which include commissioned art, custom designed lighting, custom furniture and a sculptural wood ceiling."

University of Massachusetts (UMass) Dartmouth, Claire T. Carney Library; Dartmouth, MA
designLAB architects; Associate Firm: Austin Architects 

"Conceived in 1963 as a utopian community by architect Paul Rudolph, the UMass Dartmouth campus remains a tour de force of late 20th-century architectural exuberance and optimism. The Claire T. Carney Library is the 160,000-square-foot centerpiece of the concentric campus plan. designLAB’s transformation celebrates the historic architecture, while creating a state-of-the-art learning environment, improved group study spaces, a cafe, a lecture space, and a new campus living room. Inspired by Rudolph’s original design intentions, the renovation included the re-introduction of a vibrant color palette, bold supergraphics, and dynamic social spaces."

Writers Theatre; Glencoe, IL
Studio Gang 

"While functional requirements of performance venues often dictate opaque volumes, the 36,000-square-foot Writers Theatre is instead a transparent cultural anchor that embraces its community. A double-height lobby provides a flexible space for outreach, gatherings, and performances, with glass doors that open to the adjacent park. Clad in wood hewn from the site, box office and concessions are treated as furniture, integrated into flexible lobby tribune seating. A canopy walk hung from timber trusses provides an open-air gathering place before, after, and between shows. The two stages are configured to enhance the intimacy for which Writers is known while creating new opportunities for innovative performance."

The 2017 Interior Architecture jury: Hagy Belzberg, FAIA (Chair), Belzberg Architects; Jodi R. Ernst, AIA, Universal Studios; Karen Fairbanks, AIA, Marble Fairbanks; Paula Peer, AIA, Trapolin-Peer Architects and Jim Poteet, FAIA, Poteet Architects, LP.