Syncline House

Boulder-based Arch11 has won four 2011 Watermark Awards in Builder Magazine’s annual competition. The Colorado architecture firm won the competition’s overall Project of the Year for its Syncline House, built with construction partner Hammerwell, Inc., also of Boulder. Additional awards for the Syncline project included Grand Prize, Kitchen in a Custom Home—3,000 to 5,000 square feet; an Award of Merit for Powder Room in a Custom Home; and an Award of Merit for Master Bath in a Custom Home. The 2011 Watermark Awards winners are showcased in Builder Magazine’s May issue and the story runs online with slideshows of the winning projects.

Sustainability arose as an unintentional overall theme for the 2011 awards, according to Builder Magazine Senior Design Editor Jenny Sullivan, who used Arch11’s winning design for the Syncline residence as an example: “The 2011 Project of the Year—a house that took the top spot for its kitchen, but also garnered additional awards for two of its baths—actually applied for LEED certification as an afterthought,” she wrote, “and came away with the organization’s gold award.”

Describing the Arch11-designed and Hammerwell-built Syncline residence as a “serene home” that “sits on the line where the Great Plains and the city of Boulder converge with the foothills of the Rockies,” the awards coverage goes on to praise the design’s connection to its setting, including its use of earthy materials such as limestone, Pennsylvania bluestone, soapstone and Australian jarrah wood, to “evoke the colors and textures of the natural landscape.”

Entries for the 2011 Watermark Awards were judged by a panel recognized for their expertise in the home building industry and considering criteria including innovation in architecture, floor plan efficiency and creative use of materials and interior design.