It was the year the building stopped.
That didn’t stop Pittsburgh’s architects from turning in some inspired work this year once the building started up again.
The Pittsburgh chapter of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) already made its picks for the best building designs of the year. Now, some local projects and firms have also won big at the 2020 AIA Pennsylvania Architectural Excellence Awards, a statewide competition.
They range from a stately addition to the campus of Carnegie Mellon, ANSYS Hall, to the forward-looking UBER Advanced Technologies Group’s self-driving car headquarters, to the Etna EcoDistrict Plan, a reimagination of an entire neighborhood as a model for sustainability.
Here are the winners:
Architectural Excellence Design Awards
• ANSYS Hall. Designed by Bohlin Cywinski Jackson. Honor Award, Architecture

• MuseumLab at the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh by Perfido Weiskopf Wagstaff + Goettel (PWWG Architects). Honor Award, Interior Architecture
• UBER Advanced Technologies Group by NEXT architecture. Merit Award, Interior Architecture

• Etna EcoDistrict Plan by evolveEA. Merit Award, Regional and Urban Design
• Rain Check 2.0 (Buffalo, NY) by evolveEA. Merit Award, Regional and Urban Design
Architectural Excellence COTE (Committee on the Environment) Awards

• Forest Hills Municipal Building, Pfaffmann + Associates. COTE Citation, Achievements in energy and resources

• Tree Pittsburgh Headquarters, by GBBN Architects. COTE Citation, Achievements in economy, resources and energy
Architectural Excellence Special Awards
• Nickie Cheung, Rothschild Doyno Collaborative. Associate Award
• Monica Blasko, qkArchitecture. Emerging Professional Award
• Arthur Ziegler, Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation. Contributions to the Profession by a Non-architect Award
• Marc Mondor, evolveEA. Government Award
• William Bates, Immediate Past President of the National Chapter of the AIA. Government Award
• Charles Coltharp, Gensler. Government Award
• Maureen Guttman, Building Codes Assistance Project. Government Award
Architectural Excellence Student Award
• Christoph Eckrich, Carnegie Mellon University School of Architecture. Student Award.