Marc Manack

There is much to praise the AIA Small Project Awards Program: it gives young architects and small firms a chance at recognition, what they might not receive in the other awards categories; it recognizes the importance of small buildings, structures and spaces, not just big gestures; it recognizes that innovation often occurs at the small scale; and, to be honest, many of the winning projects are just more interesting than the larger buildings that win those other awards. With this in mind, and with the AIA Small Project Awards Program ten years old, now is a great time to have a book highlighting the winners. Yet this is hardly a straightforward presentation of the winners. The projects are presented chronologically in four chapters – Pavilions & Installations, Adaptive Reuse & Interiors, Houses, Details – yet some of them feature in more than one chapter; a year-by-year index on each project points to where it is in the book. Further, between each chapter are jury comments and loads of statistics that try to find common ground among the projects. The comments are fine, but I could have used without the statistics, instead giving more pages to the projects, which are documented primarily through small photos.… (mais)