We are proud to announce that ArchitectureWorks received four awards at the 2025 AIA Alabama Design Awards! The Gulf Coast Ecocenter won an Honor Award and Divine Detail Award for the Small Projects category, as well as being the overall People’s Choice Award winner. The Indian Springs School Kayser/Samford Community Commons also received a Merit Award for the Small Projects category.
The Gulf Coast Ecocenter, a collaboration with WATERSHED, is a 17,000-square-foot environmental education campus that fosters hands-on learning and ecological stewardship along the Gulf Coast. Funded by the RESTORE Council, the LEED Gold and FORTIFIED Commercial Silver designed campus features low impact, open air structures that employ passive ventilation, daylighting, and biophilic strategies to connect people with the landscape while preserving the surrounding habitat. The jury said they were “deeply moved by the Gulf Coast Ecocenter, a project that transforms the idea of sustainability into an architectural and cultural experience. Organized as a collection of buildings forming a camp-like campus, it finds its poetry in the spaces between, those shaded courts and breezeways that become the true glue of the project. Though newly completed, it already feels timeless, an ensemble so grounded in its site that future additions will seem not appended, but inevitable.”
The Indian Springs School Kayser/Samford Community Commons, the second phase of Indian Springs School’s 2012 Master Plan, serves as the campus’s primary dining and social hub, designed to foster daily connection among students and faculty. Rooted in the landscape and oriented toward the campus lake, the building pairs warm, light-filled interiors with durable exterior materials, blending craftsmanship, comfort, and a deep respect for place. The jury noted that this project is a “thoughtful integration of material warmth, daylight, and landscape connection that establishes a welcoming environment that enhances student and faculty life.”
Thank you to AIA Alabama and the jury for this recognition!