Commonwealth Architects Wins Virginia AIA's Highest Award
October 21, 2011
Commonwealth Architects is honored to receive the 2011 T. David Fitz-Gibbon award. The highest honor bestowed by the Virginia Society to a Virginia-based architecture firm, the Fitz-Gibbon Architecture Firm Award recognizes a firm that has consistently produced distinguished architecture for at least ten years. Only one award may be bestowed each year.
The award celebrates Commonwealth Architects' more than 12 years of distinguished architectural and professional leadership. The AIA Honors Committee commended the consistent high quality of design produced by the Commonwealth Architects' team. They also recognized the firm's commitment to its community through service on a wide array of boards and commissions.
The award will be presented at the Virginia AIA's Visions for Architecture gala at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts on November 4.
Commonwealth Architects has built their practice around a mission of "Rebuilding Community." The firm's projects range from introducing a new high-tech medical research facility (Virginia Commonwealth University's Molecular Medicine Building) into a dense urban fabric, to transforming the historic Chamberlin Hotel at Fort Monroe into a continuous-care senior-living community. Since its inception, Commonwealth Architects has actively promoted pedestrian-scaled, mixed-use urban infill architecture and adaptive use. Its emphasis on recycling existing buildings and reusing existing infrastructure conserves the embodied energy of buildings and reflects a commitment to building sustainable communities.
As individuals, members of the firm have provided years of service to the City of Richmond and their professions as members of boards, commissions and volunteer groups to enhance the livability of their community.
"Commonwealth Architects' commitment to exemplary sensitive design and strong leadership reflects their dedication to outstanding quality and service in their profession. Their philosophy of reinforcing communities by rehabilitating existing buildings and encouraging compatible infill development is their hallmark," said Director of the Virginia Department of General Services Richard F. Sliwoski, P.E., Hon. VSAIA.
Through the use of state and federal historic investment tax credits for many of its projects, Commonwealth Architects has worked with clients to transform existing buildings throughout the region for new uses. Investment tax credits that typically save clients one-third of a project's rehabilitation costs have helped drive the firm's growth.
While its work enhances cities across the region, nowhere is the firm's commitment to revitalizing cities more evident than in Richmond. Two award winning rehabilitation projects in Richmond include the transformation of the former Miller & Rhoads Department Store into a mixed use project featuring a Hilton Garden Inn and the reuse of a former locomotive manufacturing warehouse into Movieland at Boulevard Square- a project that is having a positive impact on the redevelopment of the Boulevard Business District.
Former Virginia Governor, Tim Kaine, Hon. VSAIA, says of firm principal Robert (Bob) Mills, "[He] has helped make Virginia a leader in the use of historic investment tax credits and in the revitalization of our urban cores … His work has helped save elements of Richmond's architectural legacy that surely would have been lost otherwise."
In June, Commonwealth Architects completed the rehabilitation of the historic Patrick Henry Hotel in Roanoke, VA, into a mixed use project with apartments and retail. Some of its current projects on the boards include:
~ Rehabilitation of Richmond's first skyscraper, First National Bank, into upscale residential use;
~ The adaptive reuse of an R.J. Reynolds' cigarette manufacturing facility in Winston-Salem, NC, into a 423,455 square-foot mixed-used development, Plant 64;
~ A number of university projects including a new student housing project at Virginia Commonwealth University;
~ Foundry Park new mixed-use project, located between MWV and Ethyl Corporation;
~ Just completed (in association with Perkins + Will) the design of the interior architecture for MWV's new laboratories and Center for Packaging Innovation;
~ Rehabilitation of the interior of the former Richbrau Brewery in Shockoe Slip for RiverFront Investment Group to relocate to downtown Richmond.
