The Voussoirs Award

Codo 241 Project wins inaugural Voussoirs Award

A team led by Murphy & Dittenhafer Architects won the inaugural Voussoirs Award for their Codo 241 project in York, Pennsylvania. Alpha Rho Chi Fraternity announced the winners of the award on March 26, 2011 at its National Convention in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

The Voussiors Award recognizes completed projects whose product is the exceptional collaboration between design consultants, builders, clients and the community.

The name of the award is derived from the arch. In order for an arch to stand on its own, each voussoir, or element of an arch, must hold its equal share of the load, working directly with the other components in complete unison. Similarly, each collaborator within a design project must work in close association with the rest of the team in order to create a truly successful product.

Winning Entry:
CODO 241, York, Pennsylvania
Murphy & Dinnenhafer Architects

The Team

The project

Located across from the York Revolution's Sovereign Bank Stadium, the $12 million CODO 241 mixed-use redevelopment project is an important benchmark in the city's downtown renaissance. Named for the local Codorus Creek, the 69,500 square-foot CODO 241 blends the sensitive adaptive reuse of an early twentieth-century mercantile building with a striking three-level addition catering to local consumers' desire for quality downtown residential offerings. Merging "old" and "new" through its blending of steel and glass that inject a progressive, modern feel into the existing brick industrial environment, the building includes lofts, flats and loft-townhomes, as well as restaurant and commercial space.

The project is both architecturally distinctive and respectful of the surrounding downtown environment: The adaptive reuse portion retains the majority of the existing building fabric, carving eighteen apartments from the high-ceilinged space while preserving and exposing the heavy timber building structure, brick masonry walls and hardwood floors. The addition approximates the footprint of several buildings demolished in the early days of York's urban redevelopment effort, thereby recreating the prominent corner building massing at a key city intersection. Reflecting the care historically taken on early twentieth-century industrial buildings in Northeastern cities, the building's mass is broken into smaller pieces to fit into the scale of its environment. In its entirety, the new portion of the project respects the massing, scale and character of the existing historic building while clearly distinguishing itself from the earlier section.

The CODO 241 project was born from a truly collaborative process between the Murphy & Dittenhafer team (composed of Murphy & Dittenhafer Architects; Baker, Ingram & Associates, structural engineers; and Moore Engineering Company, mechanical/ electrical engineers); Wagman Construction, Inc.; Sherman Property Management, Inc.; and RGS Associates, Inc., site and civil engineers. The team met regularly for more than two years throughout the feasibility and design process. Team members worked together to select the site, architectural staff completing schematic design, construction staff completing cost estimate review, and property management staff developing probable return on investment for each of several potential locations, thus determining the best option through investigation of a range of perspectives.

During the most intense portions of the process, meetings were held weekly for three to four hours. At these meetings, the architect presented information to the owner and contractor on important facets of the design ranging from unit layouts to details such as fixtures and finishes. In many cases, the contractor provided advice on the cost ramifications of various decisions. In other cases, the property manager explained the implications of design on unit "rentability." To test the various approaches on a "macro" level, the development manager pro-forma modeled the alternatives for team consideration.

Throughout the project, team members continued to collaborate through community engagement, assembling focus groups to determine expectations and gather ideas of potential renters. Various incentives, including discounts on downtown restaurants and events, were given to focus group members, accentuating the CODO project's place in the overall downtown revitalization effort. To market the concept to the community, a website and "teaser" billboards were then created by the collaborators, querying, "What is CODO?" and piquing renter interest through promotion of the downtown lifestyle—resulting in more wait-listed renters than available apartments before completion. Finally, the team called upon local artisans to design specific pieces such as metal apartment identification numbers, stairway railings, and copper cladding, making CODO a uniquely community-driven product.

View more of the project. (pdf)

Jury response

Here's what the jury had to say about the project.

• "The quality of the architecture is excellent, cutting edge, beautiful!"
• "The collaboration is evident and powerful."
• "Color, texture and material are real strengths of this project."
• "The over all design is striking, specifically the poetic use of materials blended with the old and new."
• "It is an edgy, thoughtful, contextual, well crafted complex that merits award."

The Jury

Special thanks to our esteemed panel of judges who graciously donated their time, opinions and knowledge in selecting a winner.

Patrick C. Carter, RA

Founding partner of Reve Design Studio and Alpha Rho Chi Bronze Medal winner.

Scott Cuyler

Founding principal and creative director of Square Peg Design graphic design studio.

Robert A. Ivy, FAIA

Executive vice president and CEO of the American Institute of Architects and Alpha Rho Chi's Master Architect.

Michael Martinjuk

Senior designer and chief tinkerer at Goddard Claussen Public Affairs and alumnus of Alpha Rho Chi at Penn State.

Doug Noble, FAIA, Ph.D.

Professor of design and design computing at the University of Southern California and faculty member of Alpha Rho Chi.

Elliot Rhodeside, FASLA

Founding partner of Rhodeside & Harwell landscape architects and planners.

The attendees of the 64th National Convention of Alpha Rho Chi Fraternity

Each of whom viewed the finalists' display panels and voted for their choice for winner of the Voussoirs Award.

Honorable Mention:
24th Special Tactical Squadron, Fort Bragg, North Carolina
The Onyx Group

The 24th Special Tactical Squadron at Fort Bragg in North Carolina is a unique military command post that comprises members of all four military branches working as a joint team for one mission. The services that are represented are the Air Force, Army, Navy, and Marine Corps. For the members of the 24th STS, each mission is an exercise in coordination and collaboration of multiple enterprises that come together for a singular objective: mission success. The project team included the client, end-users, planners, architects, interior designers, engineers, and facility managers. This diverse group of professionals, some from multiple firms and different geographical regions, had to work as a single team. A failure to coordinate and collaborate on the task at hand would lead to the failure to design and construct the best facilities for the soldiers and the mission ahead. As it is for all the members of the 24th STS project team, "failure is not an option."

From the very beginning, a detailed Master Plan was developed for the project. The project envisioned a new consolidated training campus for the 24th STS with eight buildings for training, administrative, and medical personnel. During a series of charrettes, detailed analyses of the existing conditions, programmatic requirements, planning and site development challenges were discussed and solved by the project team including regional utility companies and security consultants. This multiphased project, planned for fiscal years 2010-2015, required the coordination and collaboration of many individuals and professions, each adding a critical piece to the puzzle.

Phase 1 began with the design and construction of the Team Building, a central piece of the overall master plan for the new 24th STS training campus. The Team Building is a facility that supports the individual teams that make up the 24th STS. Each team is given a series of spaces to store and familiarize themselves on the equipment that they use in the field. Since this was the first building for the new campus, special consideration was given to setting the design tone for how the other buildings would be designed. Referring to the primary mission of the end-user, the air force special ops, the idea of the parachute was selected as the key design element of the building. Through the use Building Information Modeling (BIM) by multiple members of the team, the building was constructed digitally by each discipline and then seamlessly linked together to fully represent the completed design.

Phase 2 of the Master Plan includes three new buildings: Headquarters and Operations Facility; Medical Clinic, Physical Therapy and Aquatic Training Facility; and the Combat Support Team Facility. Before design could begin on Phase 2, a Future Development Report (FDR) was written to refine the building programming with preliminary concept designs for the three buildings. During this process, information was obtained through Government reference guides and standards along with the use of written questionnaires and in-person interviews with representatives of the user groups in each building. Space requirements, desirable adjacencies, and special needs of the users were then generated from the data collected. Conceptual floor plans were developed and the conceptual site plans from Phase 1 design drawings were coordinated and refined with the project team. The new facility concept plans were developed to improve overall functions of the client and accommodate future growth and expanded mission needs. At present, the FDR is being finalized and design and construction of Phase 2 will commence.

The success of the project depended on the collaboration of a diverse and talented team. With all project members working as one team in a collaborative environment, the 24th Special Tactical Squadron will be better prepared for the critical missions ahead.

View more of the project. (pdf)