Happy New Year!

Cho Benn Holback is happy to announce that Anath Ranon has been named Senior Associate.

The Forbush School has been highlighted by the Institute for Human Centered Design as an example of successful universal design.

> IHCD Case Study - The Forbush School
> Forbush School

Going beyond just green building attributes the school is a two sided building that preserves the past and celebrates its mission. In spite of a tight site and narrow floor plates, the Barbara Ingram School maximizes educational opportunities and celebrates its mission through planning, color, lighting, way finding, interconnectivity, partnerships, socially connecting to the city and thorough unique funding and operational models.

The University of Baltimore Liberal Arts & Policy Building has been awarded a 2009 Midtown Development Award by the Midtown Development Corporation.

> UB news item

The ribbon-cutting ceremony to celebrate the completion of Aberdeen Hall at Harford Community College was held on Friday, October 30, 2009.

Aberdeen Hall, a science, technology, engineering, and math building was funded mostly by the state and county. The $12.4 million project included a new 20,000SF, 3-story lab addition which includes four biology labs, two chemistry labs, an instrumentation room, and rooftop greenhouse. Construction began July 2007 and was completed January 2009.

The lobby to Aberdeen Hall (which opened in 1964) has been named after Heather L. Hurd, a graduate of Harford Community College, who died in a car accident in January 2008. The Hurd family, along with several college administrators and local elected officials, attended the ceremony held outside the newly renovated building.

National Park Service: "Installing Green Roofs on Historic Buildings"

> Brewers Hill

Arts Schools Network serves as a resource for leaders of arts schools, arts integration schools and complimentary arts and education organizations. The Arts Schools Network 27th Annual Conference begins Tuesday, October 27, 2009 in Arlington, Virginia. Baltimore School for the Arts and Barbara Ingram School for the Arts will be discussed on October 28 & October 30 respectively.

For more information please visit Arts Schools Network.

Architecture Exchange East 2009 will be held in Richmond, Virginia November 4-6, 2009. On November 5, Cho Benn Holback + Associates will be discussing the significant and historic breweries & distilleries in Baltimore. Come hear about how the restoration and rehabilitation of these magnificent structures utilized Historic Tax Credits as well as Green Tax Credits.

> ArchEx

09.17.2009

The University of Baltimore Liberal Arts & Policy Building will be discussed at a Preservation in Practice conference entitled Metropolitan Floor System: A Case Study from the University of Baltimore on Thursday, October 22, 2009 at 2:30pm.

The second project featured will be a workshop and tour of the Adaptive Use of the American Brewery on Saturday, October 24, 2009 at 8:00am. Pre-registration is required.

More information on the conference can be found at the Traditional Building Exhibition and Conference web site.

> American Brewery

Three Cho Benn Holback + Associates projects have won AIA Maryland awards. The big winner at the annual awards ceremony was American Brewery which took home Public Building of the Year honors. The University of Baltimore Liberal Arts and Policy Building and Brooklyn Green housing were Merit Award winners.

> American Brewery
> AIA Maryland 2009 Design Awards

Barbara Ingram School for the Arts impresses even the toughest of crowds.

> Highlights of School for the Arts (The Herald-Mail)

Cho Benn Holback + Associates is proud to be ranked as the 33rd largest minority-owned business in the Baltimore area by the Baltimore Business Journal.

Historic 1900's theatre and Elk's Lodge to house school for the arts opening August 2009.

> Ingram School for the Arts a blank canvas (The Herald-Mail)

Cho Benn Holback + Associates is part of the development and design team selected to transform Highlandtown Middle School into market-rate apartments and retail space. The 258,000 SF Baltimore school was originally constructed in 1934. More details about the project named The Patterson can be found in the Baltimore Sun article linked below.

> School will house apartments (Baltimore Sun)

Cho Benn Holback + Associates now has two projects underway at Coppin State University. A significant renovation and modernization to the Parlett L. Moore Library is currently under construction. CBH+A designed all new ceilings and lighting for the five-story building at the heart of the 52-acre West Baltimore campus.

Additionally, Cho Benn Holback + Associates has recently begun planning studies for the school's main quad. The open space links the Library, Student Center and a classroom building to the rest of campus.

Cho Benn Holback + Associates will be presenting at Preservation Maryland’s 2009 Preservation and Revitalization Conference to be held in Baltimore May 28th and 29th. Firm members will be presenting and/or touring through recent CBH+A projects, including the Baltimore School for the Arts, the American Brewery, Clipper Mill, Brewers Hill, and American Visionary Arts Museum.

> Baltimore School for the Arts
> American Brewery
> Clipper Mill
> Brewers Hill
> AVAM

Cho Benn Holback + Associates has been named one of the top 100 architecture firms in the U.S. by ARCHITECT magazine. CBH+A checks in at #74 in the May issue (also available online).

We designed the ARCHITECT 50 quite simply to promote a more well-rounded definition of success. The criteria for inclusion comprise a trifecta of critical goals for every practice: profitability, sustainability, and design quality.

> ARCHITECT Online top 100 U.S. architecture firms

David Benn has been named a trustee of Preservation Maryland. The group's annual conference is slated for May 28-29th.

> Preservation Maryland

WYPR (88.1 in Baltimore) will be airing a short segment on American Brewery at 7am and 9am on Wednesday, May 20th. The brewery adaptive reuse was also featured in the recent Northeast edition of the The Architect's Newspaper in an article titled Brauhaus Proud.

> American Brewery
> WYPR audio segment
> The Architect's Newspaper

The Roman Catholic Archbishop of Baltimore has begun master planning studies on two area churches. Cho Benn Holback + Associates is currently working with Holy Korean Martyrs Parish in Baltimore and Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Edgewater on conceptual studies for expansion. A combination of new addition and renovation options are being considered to help further the missions of the two churches.

> Archdiocese of Baltimore
> Holy Korean Martyrs Parish
> Our Lady of Perpetual Help

Cho Benn Holback + Associates recently collaborated with Hord Coplan Macht on a redesign of Harris Creek Park in Canton. David Benn, CBH+A Principal and board member of the Waterfront Partnership of Baltimore headed the design highlighted in the May issue of the Urbanite Magazine.

> Urbanite - Drawing Board May 2009
> Waterfront Partnership of Baltimore

University of Baltimore's newest building will formally open on Sunday, April 19th. The Liberal Arts and Policy Building - home to UB's School of Communication Design and the Schaefer Center for Public Policy - was converted into a modern academic building by Cho Benn Holback + Associates.

The classically inspired building at the corner of Charles and Preston streets was constructed in the early 1920s as a Knights of Pythias headquarters. It subsequently was home to the popular Club Charles and various banks. Many features of the original building have been restored or preserved including the limestone facades, grand stair, terracotta tile floor featuring symbols of the zodiac, and stained glass windows.

The building totals 60,000 sf on five floors, plus a basement. Throughout the facility, labs, classrooms, study areas and offices will showcase an intense hub of academic activity.

> UB LAP Building ribbon cutting info

Forbush School has received an Award of Merit for Interior Design from Inform Magazine and the Virginia Society AIA. All 21 winners will be published in the upcoming June issue.

> Inform Awards - 2009
> Forbush School

Please join us for an Urban Design Soirée on Baltimore zoning taking place on the Vernal Equinox

BALTIMORE CITY is moving to rewrite and replace their 1971 Zoning Code. Come help us identify areas where the City needs attention to its Urban Form. Beyond reinforcing the existing fabric, what are places that might have other urban designs / forms? Also please bring examples of urban designs you are doing to discuss—TODs, neighborhoods, etc.

When: Friday, March 20, 2009, 6:30-9:00pm
Where: The Mies Building at One Charles Center, 100 N. Charles Street
in the 14th floor offices of Cho Benn Holback + Associates
RSVP: baltimoresoiree@comcast.net

> Urban Design Soirée flyer (PDF)
> CBH+A office location (Google Maps)

Three Cho Benn Holback + Associates projects are currently being featured in a traveling exhibition curated by Dean Garth Rockcastle of the University of Maryland School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation. The focus of the exhibit, titled Subsequent Action: creative work on neglected ground, is the renewal of blighted structures and sites through built interventions. Now on display through March 13 in Kibel Gallery at College Park, the works will subsequently travel to numerous venues in the next two years.

The creative work featured in this exhibition shares an enthusiasm and commitment to discover and reawaken the neglected, underutilized, marginalized, derelict, or even ruined structures, landscapes, and urban contexts, through insightful, constructive and creative engagement of new interventions, additions and/or adaptive reuse.

CBH+A recently collaborated with Foster + Partners, NY and London on the international competition to design a new Law School for the University of Baltimore. Working with an esteemed project team which included Field Operations and Buro Happold Engineers, the design focused on a building that would give a new identity to the city of Baltimore and the campus as a whole, unify and enrich the collegiate campus, and form a creative, uplifting environment in which to teach, study and work. The team, allied with the belief that architecture is generated by the material and spiritual needs of people, proposed a sustainable building that would become a new focal point and symbol for the University.

Through a sustainable approach to architecture and the belief that the quality of our surroundings has a direct influence on the quality of our lives, the building becomes a gateway defining a significant point of entry to the campus from Penn Station and consolidates all the law facilities under one roof.

> Foster + Partners
> Field Operations
> Buro Happold

The American Association of School Administrators has broadcast a press release detailing its 2009 Walter Taylor Award winner, Baltimore School for the Arts.

"Completed over four years, the result is state-of-the-art facilities that incorporate the historic charm of original features -- a brownstone entry, a cantilevered, circular stairway and unusual multipaned circular windows. What was once a narrow, shadowy alleyway between two buildings is now a bright, inviting corridor linking the school and the new 10,000-square-foot dance studio.  An unused, lower-level swimming pool was converted into a sculpture studio, and a ballroom was turned into an auditorium that is used by the school and community."

> Baltimore School for the Arts
> AASA press release