We are honored to announce that Bruner/Cott projects the R.W. Kern Center and the Powerhouse have both received BSA Honor Awards!

The Kern Center, a Living Building Challenge project at Hampshire College, was recognized with a Sustainable Design Honor Award. Jurors noted the Kern Center’s holistic approach to high-performance design, noting there was “no separation between performance and beauty.” They also commented on the project’s innovative and successful materials strategy: “Remarkably, the architect’s surveyed the materials that were locally available, and then designed the form based on that palette. The scale is set for the human user, with beauty, health, equity, and well-being driving the design.”

Amherst College’s Powerhouse received an Honor Award for Educational Facilities Design. The award jurors were impressed by the clever reuse of a defunct utilitarian space, and by the restrained design: “it’s so simple, reusing and enhancing the existing structure without putting make up on it. The architect has done everything right, impressively eschewing beautiful finishes in favor of retaining the grit and character of the original building. It’s easy to imagine that this will become a beloved campus facility.”

More details of each project, including full jury comments and team rosters, can be found on the award website. Thank you to all the team members on both these projects- we couldn’t have done it without you!