S/L/A/M wins two national awards for educational projects from the AIA

The S/L/A/M Collaborative has been recognized for two school projects by the 2009 Educational Facility Design Awards Program sponsored by the AIA Committee on Architecture for Education. At the national AIA annual meeting held in San Francisco, Avon Old Farms Beatson Performing Arts Center (Avon, Conn.) and the Samuel Staples Elementary School (Easton, Conn.) were awarded Citations of Merit from a field of more than 100 entries to the national design award program. Completed in 2006, The Samuel Staples School replaced an overcrowded, outdated elementary school with a 121,000 s/f, Pre K-5 school for 800+ students that blends modern teaching philosophies with a contextual design appropriate in a town whose character is still inspired by agrarian buildings. The design stems from the town's rural character, encouraging young children to relate to the facility by using welcoming colors and recognizable forms. The Beatson Performing Arts Center provides an auditorium that comfortably accommodates the entire Avon Old Farms School community of 400 students, plus 85 faculty and staff, for all school gatherings. It is the performance venue for the school's chorale and jazz bands with a retractable concert shell, and provides expanded instructional space with large rehearsal rooms, a variety of practice rooms and a technology-rich recording studio and radio station. The project is the most recent of nearly a dozen projects completed by SLAM at the independent boys' secondary school, noted for its historic campus designed in an English-Cotswold-inspired style by Theodate Pope Riddle in the 1920s. The annual Educational Facility Design Awards sponsored by the AIA Committee on Architecture for Education judges educational projects for their unique and outstanding functional, environmental, and aesthetic features; the involvement of learners and the community in the planning process; the project's innovations and technology; and the design response to the surrounding physical and cultural context and environmental constraints. The S/L/A/M Collaborative is a fully-integrated, multi-disciplinary firm providing architecture, planning, interior design, landscape and site planning, structural engineering, and construction services and is qualified to take responsibility for building projects from design through construction. With a growing roster of national and international projects, SLAM focuses on designing award-winning buildings that help our clients heal, teach and discover. SLAM has been ranked on Building Design and Construction "Design Giants 300;" and has been recognized by Engineering-News Record on its "Top 25 Firms in Education"; "Top 100 Green Design Firms", and "Top 500 Design Firms in the Country."