Build Architecture Awards 2016

2016 Architecture Awards Build 117 Company: Train Architects Address: 612 East Jefferson Street, Charlottesville, Virginia 22902 Phone: (434) 293.2965 Email: [email protected] Website: http://www.trainarchitects.com he Rice Rivers Center is being developed on a 343 acre “rural campus” south of Richmond on the James River in Charles City County. The site is presently divided by a 70 acre wetlands restoration due to an early twentieth-century impoundment of historic Kimages Creek. The site for the Center proper was defined in a 2002 Master Plan as the promontory/bluff, west of the lake/creek that has seen previous develop- ment. The Master Plan identified and articulates the site composition from the long north-south axis of the promontory and states that the site will dominate, the site will occupy the center – this central role of the natural context is the dominant theme of the Rice Rivers Center; the buildings are to define and reinforce a sense of place, defining the edges, aligned along the axis; the buildings are to be in harmony with the site, yet establish the image of the Center. Fundamentally the architecture of the Rice Rivers Center is at once intended to be identifiable, modern and sustainable (worn on its sleeve) while simultaneously being subservient to the site, the program and nature. This somewhat apparent dichotomy is intentional and reinforces the sub themes within the building composition and site. Conceptually we have recognized the site as the dominant theme; and in choosing the prow of the bluff for the site, with its’ river views, we have expressed that the site is the object occupying the place and not the building. This creation of a sense of place over architecture is an architectural theme and one that reinforces our aspi- rations to meet the gift of the Rice property with reverence for what we want preserved to study. The architectural sub themes reinforce how the archi- tecture interacts with the site allowing a clear understanding of the natural and the man-made. There is no intention that the architecture mimics what is, in our perception, the simple bucolic or natural quality of the site. We generally consider this approach as rustic; something lacking refinement or elegance; coarse; unsophisticated. Our intention is the opposite. It is to be in harmony with the site yet crisp, machined and sustainable – a machine in and for the garden. Train Architects Award for Innovation in Sustainable Design - Virginia & Best Eco-Friendly Institutional Project: Rice Rivers Centre, Virginia Commonwealth University Train Architects is a Virginia based practice specialising in innovative institutional projects. We invited Kirk Train to talk us through the firm’s latest project, the Rice Rivers Center. T AR160062 Photo’s by Chris Cunningham Photography