CHALLENGE: An invited design competition challenging architects to create a new center for architecture and design, supporting the Baltimore Chapters of the American Institute of Architects, Baltimore Architecture Foundation, America Society of Landscape Architects, National Organization of Minority Architects and The American Planning Association in a building originally designed by Mies van der Rohe.

OUTCOME: We proposed a Center for Architecture and Design containing a public space that is welcoming and accessible in all senses of the word. 
"...the purest architecture is that most suited to fundamental human needs, and to basic human society...architecture has to get back to basics."

Marc-Antoine Laugier, Essai Sur L'Architecture, Paris, 1753

The proposed Center communicates both an idea about Architecture with a capital ‘A’ and also the architecture of everyman within the vocabulary or tectonics of production, the materials, and the making of the Center.  Laugier's illustration identifies Architecture's roots in Nature and Craft. RM Sovich Architecture's proposal for the Center is an intervention of environmentally sensitive materials, such as reclaimed and FSC-Certified Wood, and crafted ornament in contrast to the industrial-inspired shell building, designed by Mies van der Rohe.

As Gaston Bachelard wrote: “...a building constructed by human hands is thus returned to nature by our dreams.”