04-30-2007 8 properties ‘raise the bar’ for design excellence

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o�sou Tx F dx :J b W eFacE � � y� a 1, a2 1865 Office of the Mayor NEWS RELEASE ApH130, 2007 3 p.m. 8 properties `raise the bar' for design excellence Contact: Mikki Dobski, Director of Communications&Special Projects, 235-5855 or 876- 1564, or Marco Mariani, 282-1110 SOUTH BEND—The City of South Bend played a role in half of the eight properties who on Saturday(April 28, 2007)received the first Pride of Place Design Awards from Downtown South Bend. From a family's renovation of a former firehouse and a developer's transformation of an office complex into luxury condominiums to a non-profit's commitment to the beauty of its neighborhood and large-scale efforts at historic preservation, each of the award-winners shared a commitment"to raise the bar." "We've got to raise the bar. We've got to celebrate these people who spent a little more to help make this community a better place to live. .... We all owe a debt of gratitude,"said Dean Bergeman, director of design at MPA Architects and chairman of DTSB's Pride of Place Design Awards committee. "None of these would have happened individually without both public and private support." Eight institutions were the inaugural winners of the glass block award, featuring the DTSB red- and-blue logo, selected from 20 nominees: • New downtown construction—'the Museums at Washington and Chapin. The boards of trustees for the Northern Indiana Center for History and the Studebaker National Museum shared in the award for the combined complex. Designed by James Child Architects and built by HG Christman Construction, the facility gives each museum a distinctive identity while sharing one parking lot, entrance, lobby, sign and other features. `'the Studebaker museum ... is an excellent example of value engineering, having come in$300,000 below budget," according to nominating documentation. "In addition, several design features directly acknowledged the neighborhood context." • Landscaping—With its Sunshine Clubhouse at Crescent and Niles avenues, Madison Center transformed an empty lot with a sloped storage head and a piece of heavy equipment into tranquil gardens, walkways, a pond and a fountain surrounding its new 10,000-square-foot, lodge-style facility. Kundell Ernstberger was landscape architect, Foegley Landscaping did the work and Dean Bergeman of MPA Architects designed the facility on behalf of Madison