South Dakota architecture firms captured two American Institute of Architects (AIA) South Dakota Honor Awards and three Merit Awards during this week’s AIA South Dakota annual conference.
CO-OP Architecture, of Sioux Falls, Aberdeen and Rapid City, won an Honor Award in Architecture — AIA South Dakota’s top design award — for its design of the new Click Rain & Lemonly Headquarters, which involved a renovation of a circa-1919 downtown Sioux Falls sawtooth building that once served as a spark plug factory. CO-OP Architecture also won an Honor Award in Architecture for its modernization of Watertown Regional Airport, designing a new 26,000-square-foot terminal offering streamlined security, contemporary airy circulation, fresh check-in and car rental counters and improved amenities.
EAPC Architects Engineers of Sioux Falls won a Merit Award in Architecture for its design of the South Dakota State University Raven Precision Agriculture Center in Brookings, providing more than 130,000 square feet of lab, research and learning space to help students to explore methods to increase food production, conserve resources, and reduce waste.
Koch Hazard Architects of Sioux Falls won a Merit Award in Architecture for the Falls Center Trash Enclosure, part of its update to the circa-1899 Jewett Brothers and Jewett Wholesale Grocers building in downtown Sioux Falls, which Koch Hazard had renovated and restored in 1992. The most recent project included updates to the building’s public spaces, a rehabilitation of its historic loading dock and a transformation of the trash enclosure area.
TSP, Inc., of Sioux Falls and Rapid City, won a Merit Award in Architecture for the Northern State University Jewett Regional Science Education Center, a state-of-the-art science facility that blends old and new campus vernacular to create a rejuvenated arrival experience to campus.
The juror panel for the 2023 AIA SD Design Awards was led by Kate Schwennsen, FAIA, Professor Emeritus and Director Emeritus of the School of Architecture, Clemson University. Also serving as jurors were Thomas Savory, FAIA, LEED AP, NCARB, a principal and higher education design director with McMillan Pazdan Smith Architecture, and Jane Frederick, FAIA, LEED AP, a principal at Frederick + Frederick Architects who had served as the 96th president of the American Institute of Architects.
(A ZIP file containing two high-res images of each of the winning designs can be downloaded from: https://app.box.com/s/1x2u35i6ojhlleggkx83dg9x4knkvety. Note that the folder contains a Word file with required photographer credits.)
AIA South Dakota also honored Bernie Hunhoff, the editor-at-large of South Dakota Magazine, with its 2023 Champion of Architecture award. Hunhoff, who grew up on a Yankton County farm with seven brothers, graduated from Mount Marty College before starting a career in business, journalism and politics. Hunhoff and his family have published South Dakota Magazine for nearly 40 years from the Pennington House, an Italianate building in downtown Yankton built in 1875 by a territorial governor. Hunhoff previously worked as a journalist for daily newspapers in Watertown and Madison and has been active in agriculture, economic development, conservation, politics, history and historic preservation.
For its 2023 Legacy Award, AIA South Dakota honored Patricia Acevedo Fuentes AIA, NCI CS, a partner/architect with Joseph David Associates in Rapid City. Acevedo Fuentes served on the AIA South Dakota Board of Directors, holding the title as president of the organization from 2018 to 2019. She also served nationally on AIA’s Strategic Council and Member Value Task Force and was a Bush Foundation fellow in 2021-2023.
AIA South Dakota named Jared Carda, AIA, Associate Principal Architect with CO-OP Architecture in Rapid City, as its 2023 South Dakota Young Architect. Carda, who grew up in Wagner and holds a Masters of Architecture and Bachelor of Architectural Studies from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, serves on the AIA South Dakota Board of Directors and the South Dakota Board of Technical Professions.
AIA South Dakota also announced its Board of Directors for 2024-2025:
- President Jeff Nelson, AIA, Falls Architecture Studio, Sioux Falls
- Vice President Justin Oleson, AIA, RSA Architecture & Design, Sioux Falls
- Secretary/Treasurer Jared Carda, AIA, CO-OP Architecture, Rapid City
- Immediate Past President Allison Dvorak, AIA, Avera Health, Sioux Falls
- New board members: Angela Boersma, AIA, ID8 Architecture, Brookings; Josh Muckenhirn, AIA, ISG, Sioux Falls; Mark Averett, AIA, TSP, Inc., Rapid City
- Continuing board members: Randal Fisher, AIA, ASLA, DesignWorks, Rapid City; Chase Kramer, AIA, TSP Inc., Sioux Falls; Kasey Belzer, Assoc. AIA, JLG Architects, Rapid City; Terri Miller, AIA, Architecture Incorporated, Sioux Falls; Sean Ervin, AIA, South Dakota State University, Brookings; Brad Burns, AIA, Chamberlin Architects, Rapid City; Svavar Magnusson, Assoc. AIA, Architecture Incorporated, Sioux Falls
AIA South Dakota is the professional non-profit membership association of architects, future architects, and partners in the building and design industries, and the state chapter of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) AIA South Dakota advances the mission that design matters in every South Dakota community.