Orchids and Onions Sprout Up in LJ

Almost everything came up roses for La Jolla Thursday at the annual Orchids & Onions gala hosted by the San Diego Architectural Foundation.

The annual awards show features the best and the worst in the architectural designs in San Diego County. This year the gala was held at the Culy Warehouse downtown.

A total of eight projects in La Jolla were nominated to the list. Fortunately some came out winners. Unfortunately some came out winners of the infamous "onion" award for anything from poor planning, poor design or being just plain ugly.

Six projects earned praise with "orchid" nominations and awards, including La Jolla Country Day School and five projects on UC San Diego's campus.

Orchids Nominations

• The l's $47 million campus rebuilding was praised. The project began in 2005 with upgrading and reinstallation of the utility infrastructure on the 24-acre campus. The school has since completed a two-story middle school, a three-story library, a two-story visuals arts and science center, kindergarten complex, major landscaping, athletic complex and improved parking, all on time and on budget. The project architect and design team consists of Davy Architecture, Michael J. Hoffman AIA, Walt Conwell Architect, Ferguson Pape Baldwin and McGraw Baldwin.
• The UC San Diego Housing Dining Hospitality Building was recognized for stellar design elements. The structure's most noticeable feature is its exterior glass screen walls that hang free of the building. The glass screen provides thermal and sun protection to the interior of the building and wind protection to a rooftop terrace. Studio E Architects designed the project.
• Next up on the list at UC San Diego was the new RIMAC Annex, which provides additional recreational facilities to the existing building on campus. The three-story building overlooks the soccer and softball fields on the east and the Rady School of Management on the west. The project designer was Bauer and Wiley Architects.
• The next award nomination goes to the Village at Torrey Pines West, also on UC San Diego's campus close to Torrey Pines golf course. The project is a 1,026-bed student housing complex consisting of eight buildings with each apartment having its own bathroom, kitchen and sleeping space. The multi-phase project also plans for conference space, a bookstore, laundry, café, office space and retail space. The complex was designed with numerous environmentally friendly and sustainable features. The architect is MVE Institutional Inc.
• Conrad Prebys Concert Hall earned an grand orchid. Mark Reddington of LMN Architects designed the concert hall with renowned acoustician Cyril Harris. Harris's projects have included the Metropolitan Opera House, Minneapolis Symphony Hall, and Seattle's Benaroya Hall. The concert hall is also noteworthy because Harris says it is his last and best project, according to the San Diego Architectural Foundation.
• And lastly, the Rita Atkinson Residences on UC San Diego's campus earned an orchid nomination. The 226-unit housing development was designed and constructed by Webcor and Valerio Dewalt Train Associates. The $59 million development is a nine-floor structure comprised of two bedroom units and amenity spaces. The project was completed on budget in September, a full year ahead of the original schedule. The environmentally friendly development is on target to achieve LEED Silver rating.

Onions Nomination

The 92037 picked up three onion awards for poor design.

• Ironically, the Rita Atkinson Residence also earned a nomination for an onion for its "inappropriate scale within the coastal zone, poor quality materials and color selection of chartreuse and white." The San Diego Architectural Foundation said, sadly, that this project is not up to the quality of other UCSD buildings.
• The second onion nominatin goes to the corner of Russell Lane and Gilman Drive on UC San Diego's campus for being a mishmash of landscape design. It apparently has three kinds of sidewalks, sagging plastic fences, no trees and several types of ground cover.
• The final onion? The widening of Interstate 5 from La Jolla to Oceanside.