KTGY GROUP Receives Two Grand Awards at The Builder’s Choice Awards — Bayside In Hercules and Aqua Via In Oakland, Calif. Win Awards

November 10, 2006 (PRLEAP.COM) Business News
IRVINE, CALIF. - Award-winning KTGY GROUP, INC., Architecture and Planning, is pleased to announce its latest achievement at the most recent Builder’s Choice Design & Planning Awards held at The Ritz Carlton hotel in Washington, D.C. KTGY won the Grand Award for two of its California residential mixed-use projects, Bayside in Hercules and Aqua Via in Oakland.

“We are thrilled to receive two of the most prestigious awards at the Builder’s Choice Awards ceremony,” said Jill Williams, AIA, principal and the director of KTGY’s new Oakland office. “The team worked tirelessly with the City, the community, and the developer to deliver high quality designs. Everyone can feel quite proud of these awards.”

For over a quarter of a century, the Builder’s Choice Awards have set the standards by acknowledging and honoring excellence in home design from custom housing, production housing, design details, community design and remodeling/rehabilitation. “With each passing year, the level of quality and innovation increases, thus raising the bar ever higher, which makes this award all the more valued,” noted Williams. There were more than 500 entries received for this year’s competition.

Bayside is a mixture of diverse residential and live/work housing styles built on 32.6 acres of former vacant industrial land in Hercules, Calif. The development consists of 334 homes, tree-lined streets, and landscaped paseos flanked on two sides by wetlands and on a third by a creek.

“These natural boundaries created a permanent void in the urban fabric that required the design of a perimeter street and bike trail, thus turning this new neighborhood out and placing a public interface to these open spaces,” Williams said. Bayside won in the Community with Mixed-Use Housing Types category. The developers and builders were John Laing Homes in Roseville, Calif. and William Lyon Homes in San Ramon, Calif.

KTGY’s other Grand Award winner, Aqua Via in Oakland, Calif., adjacent to the highly popular Jack London Square, fuses the timeless simplicity of 1930’s industrial/warehouse design with an outstanding array of building amenities including beautiful water views, fitness center, bocce ball court and access to a water taxi. The eight-story building consists of 100 “loft-style” units stacked 6-stories high over a two-level parking garage and more than 5,000 square feet of commercial/retail space. Large industrial style windows and the simplicity of cast-in-place concrete columns and spandrel beams blends the design into the context of the warehouse type neighborhood including a paper company and restaurant supply business. “Detailing applied within the concrete forms was utilized to create a subtle traditionally influenced facade,” said KTGY’s architect Stan Braden, AIA. Aqua Via won the Grand Award in the Mixed-use Community category and was developed by The Embarcadero Pacific Company of San Francisco, Calif.

“Utilizing an exposed concrete moment frame without having to apply a separate skin to the building gave us the desired look of a converted warehouse building and saved considerable construction dollars,” added Braden.

KTGY GROUP, INC., Architecture and Planning, was created in 1991, with project viability and client satisfaction as abiding priorities, while providing complete planning and architectural design services for residential communities, retail developments and related specialty projects. In a complex and changing world, the firm consistently delivers innovative solutions that reflect clear understanding of development, marketing and financial performance.

KTGY takes particular pride in its highly motivated and principal led studio teams, who deliver superior services, thus strengthening clients’ long-term growth and earnings objectives. Serving clients throughout the United States, the firm has locations in Irvine, Santa Monica, Oakland and Denver. For more information, contact Sayeh Rad at (949) 851-2133 or visit www.ktgy.com.

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Sayeh Rad
KTGY GROUP Inc.
Architecture + Planning
17992 Mitchell South
Irvine, CA 92614
Phone: 949.797.8346 x1346
srad@ktgy.com