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photo of Olson Kundig Wins GRAY Award

Olson Kundig Wins GRAY Award

2017/12/01

At the first annual GRAY Magazine Awards held November 29 in downtown Seattle, Olson Kundig’s ICE CUBE project was named a winner in the Wild Card category. The GRAY Awards celebrate innovative design projects in the Pacific Northwest across multiple disciplines, including architecture, interior design and product design.

The finalists were selected by an international panel of judges including multidisciplinary designer and artist Karim Rashid, designer Philippe Starck, landscape architect James Corner, and architect Deborah Berke. Rashid noted of ICE CUBE, “The dialogue between the manmade and the natural is beautiful here. This project is also interesting for its temporality; architecture in the 21st century is becoming much less about permanency.”

ICE CUBE was a temporary installation designed for the 2016 Seattle Design Festival showcasing the stages of the natural water cycle as the ice shifted from opaque to translucent. As the ten-ton ice cube evaporated and melted over the course of the festival, it offered a cool respite to visitors, marking the passage of time as its waters slowly returned to the sea.

We share the honor of this award with our valued partners who helped make ICE CUBE possible.

ICE CUBE, Seattle, Washington

Architectural Staff: Clay Anderson, Noah Conlay, Jarri Hasnain, and Gregory Nakata
Design Mentor: Mark Olthoff, AIA, LEED® AP
General Contractor: Dovetail General Contractors
Lighting Design: NITEO Lighting
Structural Engineering: Swenson Say Faget
Ice Sculptor: Cascade Crystal Ice