The firm recently held a playful contest comprised of 64 M&D architecture projects located throughout Pennsylvania and Maryland.
Inspired by the AIA Baltimore’s ArchMadness on-line tournament held earlier this year for Chapter members, Murphy & Dittenhafer Architects held its own internal contest pitting 64 of its diverse designs against one another to ultimately name the firm’s “champion.”
Voting criteria was intentionally vague. Staff members could pick based on aesthetic preferences, architectural complexity, or however else they deemed appropriate — personal involvement bias wasn’t discouraged.
Complete with witty commentary between rounds, regions named after architectural legends (Frank Lloyd Wright, Robert Venturi, Louis Kahn, Le Corbusier), and live voting and lobbying during the final matchups, the winner of M&D Design Madness was announced during the company’s quarterly Design Forum: Lanham Hall at Prince George's Community College in Largo, Maryland.
One shining moment
Completed in 2018, the renovation and addition project of Lanham Hall was dubbed by the M&D staff as one of the firm’s most iconic designs, complete with inspiring Architecture and LEED Gold Certification.
“It offered an opportunity to reactivate a tired brick masonry box by perforating it with natural light and integrating new transparent, green and innovative architectural elements to generate a new campus icon building with a welcoming visibility for all,” says Architect Peter Schwab.
Previously decorated with a 2019 Craftsmanship Award from the Washington, D.C., Building Congress, the project now boasts the unique honor of M&D Design Madness Champion.
Runner-up
An early favorite based on its impressive list of AIA and community awards, the downtown York-based CODO 241 renovation, addition and adaptive reuse residential project came in second place.
“CODO 241 was a project that stood out to me as a turning point for building design in Downtown York,” said Associate Patrick Ness, who advocated on its behalf during the live voting championship round. “Prior to that project, there weren’t many contemporary buildings being planned, developed, or built in the city.”
Ness said that while the project — which was completed in 2009 — remains sensitive to the scale of the city block and respects the architectural language of adjacent buildings, it also breaks away in materiality and expression.
“To put it simply,” he said, “it was an exciting and new design for a city that needed it at that time.”
Rounding out the Final Four
Architect Peter Colello was among the staff members who had high hopes for the historic restoration of The Forum Building and iconic Forum Auditorium located in Harrisburg.
As part of a team that’s restoring important portions of the building and adding modern office spaces to be re-occupied by the Pennsylvania Department of Education, “it’s a special project for me,” says Colello, who remembers class field trips to the Auditorium while in elementary school. “It has always amazed me how unique the building was and the amount of detail that was put into the building.”
Another historic restoration project, Old St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Baltimore, also had a Final Four deep run in the M&D Design Madness tournament.
An exercise in historic preservation, the comprehensive renovations to the church sanctuary and rectory presented a delicate challenge to the firm. Lauren Myatt, Principal at Murphy & Dittenhafer Architects, said the goal was to work with the church’s character, while also balancing the current needs of the congregation and the current ways the building is being used.
“There were a lot of different views on what was the right thing to do with a church of this historical and architectural significance.”
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