The Spectrum First Prize Award in the commercial category went to Native Tile and Ceramics for The Four Seasons Biltmore Hotel renovation.

Seventeen standout projects were honored at Coverings 2009 with the annual Spectrum and Prism Awards, which recognize, respectively, outstanding and imaginative use of tile and natural stone.  This year’s competitions drew 176 entries, a record field that made the judges’ job of deciding the winners more challenging than ever before and testifies to the coveted prestige of the awards. Paige Rien, designer for HGTV’s top-rated “Hidden Potential,” emceed the awards ceremony, presenting a total of $21,000 in prize money. Winners were feted, as well, with a cocktail reception at McCormick Place Convention Center, where the four-day international tile and stone expo was held.

2009 Spectrum Winners

The Spectrum First Prize in the Mosaic/Glass Tile category went to Miotto Mosaic Art Studios for the custom mural, "New Year's Eve Revelers," in Times Square Subway Station, New York, NY.

Wowing the judges and winning the Spectrum $2,000 First Prize in the Ceramic/Porcelain Tile-Commercial Category was Native Tile and Ceramics for its work on The Four Seasons Biltmore Hotel Historic Renovation in Santa Barbara. Renowned for its hand crafted decorative tiles reflecting styles indigenous to California architecture, Native, and its founding master artisan Diane Mausser, painstakingly created tiles used throughout the property that are exact replicas of historic ones from the original 1927 construction. A custom clay and glazes were engineered especially for several newly installed murals mirroring those that long adorned many of the hotel’s walls. Not only did the materials need to be duplicated, but also the technique:  the original murals had an imperfect glaze application where the colors bled together in a whimsical way. Native achieved this and more, with its exquisite handiwork featured in the guest entry, custom fountain mural, main building restrooms, and the exterior stair risers. Others integral to the massive and triumphant renovation were acclaimed architects Peter Marino and Hill Glazier, designers Wilson & Associates, landscape designer Van Atta & Associates, and Kitchell Contractors.

Another dramatic renovation rich in artisan tile installations netted the $2,000 First Prize in the Ceramic/Porcelain Tile-Residential Category. It was presented to Motawi Tileworks and Project Designer Colleen Crawley for the Terrell, TX home of Dan and Karen Hartsfield. The Hartsfield Residence reflects their passion for design from the Arts and Crafts movement and is now a jewel box of Motawi’s tile artistry. An image of a 1920s fireplace was the inspiration for a Mission-style wood mantle studded with tile in various sizes and glazes, including greens, browns and granite tones. Greeting guests in the foyer are Motawi’s distinctive hand-dipped field tiles composed to resemble an area rug designed in the Frank Lloyd Wright tradition. One of Wright’s stained glass lamps inspired the layout of the sunroom floor. In the renovated kitchen, decorative relief tiles featuring an animal series and a floral relief border complement field tiles to create a backsplash that connects the original character of the home with the updated appliances and custom cabinetry. A rich sepia-toned glaze lends warmth and personality to the space, and helps to fulfill the Hartsfields’ wish for a kitchen that looked original to the 1922 home. Other credits for the project include Jeremy Frazier of James I. Smith Tile, tile installer, and supplier Renaissance Tile & Bath.

The $2,000 First Prize winner for Mosaic/Glass Tile delights the thousands who travel through New York City’s Times Square Subway Station. New Year’s Eve Revelers is a celebration, quite literally, of the power and possibility of tile. It is a mural that lines a passageway between Times Square and Port Authority and provides an impressive visual treat with 70 nearly life-size figures in a range of expressive poses embodying the spirit of end-of-the-year partying. The scale and scope of this work are astounding. The original pastel portraits by artist Jane Dickson were enlarged to their current size on paper and then the mosaic masters of Travisanutto Giovanni, a studio in Spilimbergo, Italy, hand-cut and applied glass smalti—some no larger than a flake of confetti—to match every detail, every color of each of her characters. Once those were completed, the standard white subway tiles of the station were chiseled out and the surface prepared for the mosaic to be installed, another tour-de-force feat on this MTA Arts for Transit project. Miotto Mosaic Art Studios, Carmel, NY, was responsible for the installation and for submitting it in the Spectrum competition.

Three $1,000 Spectrum Awards of Merit were also presented. A public art project at the University of Florida at Gainesville, entitled Nanotube Fullerenes, won in the Ceramic/Porcelain Tile-Commercial category. Installed in the entryway of the NIMET Nanoscale Research Facility, it was designed by Twin Dolphin Mosaics, which took home a Spectrum Special Recognition Award in 2006. A mosaic covering 225 square feet of the lobby floor, the installation complements the “high-tech” theme of the building, featuring designs inspired by the field of nanotechnology. Three different black tiles around the perimeter blend with the surrounding floor tile, while glass and marble accents are scattered throughout. Best viewed from the overhead walkway, it artfully fulfills the client’s desire for a functional, low-maintenance work. In the Ceramic/Porcelain Tile-Residential category, the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture, in Scottsdale, AZ, garnered the prize for Taliesin Mod.Fab. The design team, comprised mostly of students, embraced the challenge of creating a high quality, sustainable small-space modular dwelling. At 500 square feet, it is about the size of a one-bedroom apartment but loaded with smart living ideas, including ceramic tile floors designed to capture solar heat, and, in some cases, made from recycled waste materials. The third winner was for Mosaic/Glass Tile, and Oak Plaza, a 2,600-square-foot project located along a new pedestrian thoroughfare in the Miami Design District, took this honor. Blue and green 12-by-12-inch Bisazza glass tiles were used to create a mosaic mural on the façade of the L-shaped Loggia Building that surrounds the plaza on both sides. The mural also includes four 14-karat gold glass tile stars inset into the walls. Tile and Marble Works, Inc. was the installer on the project.

The Roswell Interarts Organization picked up the $1,000 Community Award for two one-of-a-kind projects in Roswell, NM. The first, the Tree of Knowledge, was designed by lead artist Susan Wink to commemorate the centennial of the city’s public library. The level of community involvement in the project was extraordinary: over the course of two years, hundreds of participants of all ages attended free tile-making workshops, which generated over 2,800 inscribed word tiles forming the dense textural mosaic that covers the 17-foot custom tile, concrete and steel tree. The second, Arts Connect—Creative Learning Center, was a series of six 13-by-14-foot mosaic mural panels that decorate the Center. The project was a collaboration between a local non-profit organization promoting art activities in the Roswell area, New Mexico Arts and the Roswell Independent School District. More than 1,000 drawings by 3rd and 4th graders from 12 schools were collected for each panel; selected drawings were scanned and collaged together for the final themed panel compositions. In tile-making workshops, teachers learned how to transfer the drawings onto clay slabs to create the custom tiles for each panel. It was an ambitious civic undertaking yielding glorious results.

The Spectrum inaugural Design + Detail Award went to Sonia King, a 2006 Spectrum First Prize winner. This time, her “Nebula Chroma” Mosaic Mural at Children’s Medical Center of Dallas, earned the prize. The elaborate composition, a focal point of the multi-story main lobby, was intended to create a dramatic and engaging expression of contemporary mosaic art that appeals to all ages. It was crafted from more than 200 different kinds of tile from over 20 manufacturers.

2009 Prism Winners

The Prism First Prize in the Residential category went to The Gallegos Corporation for the Highlands Pond Residence in Colorado.

This year’s Prism Award recipients spanned a broad range of projects but shared one common, and commendable, trait: truly exceptional use of natural stone.

Manhattan’s trendy NoHo neighborhood is home to 25 Bond Street, the $2,000 Spectrum First Prize-Commercial winner. Walker Zanger walked away with top honors for supplying this multi-family dwelling with an intriguing menu of stone materials. To create a façade that was contemporary yet in keeping with the traditional architectural styles of the historic district, two types of stone were used—Benjamin Gold from Israel and Oro Tocano from Egypt. They form a double-layered screen wall of varying widths and irregular separations, which provides for both privacy and unusual openness. There were many stone fabrication challenges on the project. First, the entire façade—some 15,000 square feet of 2-3/16-inch exterior cladding—required hand-tooling and was hand-hewn. Second, for the paving, the project entailed: quarrying a block of granite large enough to reach from the building to the curb, and sawing it into 16-foot-long, 8-inch thick slabs. Each 3-ton slab had to be hand-flamed and shipped from China to New York and lifted into place without damage. Missions accomplished with stellar results.

The First Prize Prism Award in the Institutional category went to Holzman Moss Architecture for Jefferson Hall--USMA Library and Learning Center in West Point, NY.

The United States Military Academy at West Point and its first new building in 35 years, Jefferson Hall—USMA Library and Learning Center, were saluted with the $2,000 First Prize in the Institutional Category. Holzman Moss Architecture, the New York City-based firm, accepted the honor. The firm’s assignment was to design a library that reflected the spirits and values of today’s Army, while paying tribute to the Academy’s architectural origins and status as part of the National Historic Landmark District. The new building was clad in 1,586 tons of granite, in keeping with the overall Military Gothic style of the campus. Additionally, hand-tooled granite block clads the two end towers, and details such as sandstone window surrounds, a three-dimensional West Point arch at the main entry, and double-height windows echo similar features in neighboring buildings, maintaining the design continuity of the nearly 16,000 acre military reservation. Materials selected for the project met bronze SPiRiT certification, a government-initiated sustainability program. Criteria included low VOC content, low embodied energy, recycled content and geographic proximity to the project site.

The Prism First Prize Award in the Commercial category went to Walker Zanger for 25 Bond Street in New York, NY.

Coverings awarded the $2,000 First Prize-Residential to The Gallegos Corporation for the Highland Ponds Residence, a large custom single-family home in Aspen. The exterior veneer, fashioned from split-face Carioca Gold Granite from Brazil, includes 6,300 square feet of split-face wall veneer and 4,800 square feet of Berm roof cladding. All material was custom quarried and fabricated to fit the architect’s and installer’s specifications. Both the interior flooring and exterior paving are Colorado Buff Sandstone, which was quarried and sawn at the supplier’s operation. The kitchen features 2-inch thick honed Impala Black countertops with a custom fabricated sink and drain board, while in the master bath, Mariana Soapstone from Brazil was fabricated to include a carved sink, custom bathtub, shower surround, shower bench and custom shower floor with hidden shower drain. Other credits on the project include architect Graham Hogan of Antoine Predock Architect PC and general contractor Steve Hansen of Hansen Construction.

Three $1,000 Prism Awards of Merit were also bestowed on exemplary projects. The Maguire Lobby—355 South Grand, the lobby renovation of the KPMG Tower in Los Angeles, received the prize in the Commercial Category. The previously dark, cavernous space was transformed into a light, bright and airy one, all while the building remained occupied by tenants. Hand-selected Piana Carrara marble from Italy, Thassos marble from Greece and Neoparies from China were the key materials used in the dramatic redesign. The project marked an impressive third Prism victory for contractor Carnevale & Lohr, which took home the Grand Prize in 2007 and last year received First Prize in the Commercial category. David M. Schwarz Architects earned the Institutional Category prize for Nashville’s Schermerhorn Symphony Center, a $95 million, 197,000-square-foot new construction with world-class acoustics. The building, clad in Indiana Standard Buff Limestone, achieves perfect pitch. Its timeless Neo-Classical architecture is at home among many of the city’s other structural landmarks yet reflects a modern sensibility as a top-tier 21st century concert hall. The Residential prize was presented to installer Executive Stone for the Brentwood Residence, located in the foothills of the Santa Monica Mountains. Hagy Belzberg of Belzberg Architects paid homage to the palette of classic mid-century design, selecting materials such as gauged and stacked Pennsylvania Bluestone and Mangaris wood siding.

Two Prism entries also each received a $1,000 Design + Detail Award. Stone manufacturer Waterjet Works! was recognized for Hunt Corporation Headquarters—Foucault Pendulum, in Dallas, a complex installation that features seven different types of stone. Rugo Stone, LLC, of Lorton, VA, followed up its 2007 Prism Grand Prize win and 2008 Award of Merit and Architectural Excellence Award with a prize for Our Lady of Pompeii, Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, in Washington, DC, an ornate chapel vigorous in color and design.