The main authors of the Energy and water efficient border control station, Julie Snow and Matt Kreilich, were presented with a certificate to commemorate the project’s status as one of 15 Global Holcim Awards finalists in the previous competition. Since then, the implemented project has received much attention and has recently won two additional prizes which recognize the contextual, aesthetic, and social performance of the project.

AIA Minnesota Honor Award: The Look (and Feel) of Architecture

The American Institute of Architects (AIA) Minnesota recognized the Energy and water efficient border control station in the recent “Honor Awards: The Look (and Feel) of Architecture” as a project offering a sense of both permanence and timelessness. In celebrating the architectural oeuvre of the American Midwest, the awards paid homage to exposed raw concrete, industrial spans of steel, and richly textured stone that speaks to a regional sensibility of humble craft and an unpretentious material honesty.

The AIA jury commended the project for its texture and tactile experience. The jury citation noted: “It’s really a landscape project-landscape and building have merged. The expert jury panel commended the material toughness of the project, and the way the patterning and the textures of the exterior create syncopation over the long spans.”

2014 GSA Design Awards celebrate contextual performance

In addition, the project was one of twenty winners of the US General Services Administration (GSA) 2014 Design Awards, selected from buildings designed for use by the American public service and administration. The 2014 GSA Design Awards  focussed on the achievements of the structure in sustainable stormwater management, contextual and aesthetic impact, and provision of quality working conditions and public space.

How a blur the boundary between building and landscape

In spring 2008, snowmelt and heavy rain caused extensive flooding of the St. John River. In the town of Van Buren, Maine, where the river marks a natural boundary to Canada, floodwaters destroyed the US Land Port of Entry. Relocated to a long, linear site that parallels the river bluff, the new border station counts sustainable stormwater management among its accomplishments.

Research undertaken early in this project’s development uncovered that, historically, local potato farmers had shaped the earth into low mounds to divert water flow. By combining similar landforms with a stone-lined swale, today the land-port site channels rainfall and melted snow into a sedimentation chamber and wet pond. This process slows runoff and filters it prior to release into the St. John River. The rolling landforms also enhance site security, while blurring the distinction between border security and vernacular place.

Just as the land port’s site-performance features are camou­flaged as agrarian landscape, so its 4,100m2 building blends with local forests. A repetitive pattern of joints and mullions characterizes the building’s glass-and-metal envelope: From outdoors, tonal variation in the aluminum panels and flush glazing partly conceals US Customs & Border Protection agents who survey the site from inside.

The security of border agents underpinned much decision making behind this design, and the building plan exemplifies the attention paid to safety. Divided into multiple volumes united by a skylight-punctuated canopy, the land port assumes a Z shape; the configuration allows officers the widest-possible sightlines from their primary stations, and the canopy protects them from poor weather during outdoor vehicle inspections. Optimizing work conditions was additionally important for this project, because regional staffing can be limited.

Measures were also taken to make the architecture feel welcoming to the public, such as finishing the interior with warm treatments and illuminating inspection spaces by skylight. Besides stormwater management, green strategies are represented by ground­ source-heat-pump and evacuated-solar-tube systems that contribute to a 48 percent reduction of energy consumption over the standard land port.