The developers of the Citizen, a 12-story tower in downtown Oklahoma City, call the property a “new building concept” because of its unusual mix of office and hospitality tenants. But it also includes Art Deco-era elements, a combination that's drawing global attention.
The Citizen was one of about 480 completed buildings, interior designs and proposed projects in the U.S. and Canada named to this year’s World Architecture Festival awards shortlist.
The festival, set for November in Singapore, has 33 categories with designs from U.S.-based firms including Perkins & Will, HKS, Foster & Partners, Kohn Pedersen Fox and Renzo Piano Building Workshop. Nominated designs for 2024 are in countries including Brazil, Finland, India, New Zealand, Poland, Taiwan, Thailand and the United Kingdom.
The Citizen was designed by Allford Hall Monaghan Morris, a London-based architecture firm, for developer Polis OKC and partners Bond Payne and Renzi Stone. It’s expected to open this year and combines offices for “family offices, philanthropic organizations, hospitality and civic-minded businesses” with a hotel, social club, flex workspace, restaurants and event space.
The design was influenced by “neighboring 1930s architecture … [taking] the prevailing vertical emphasis and characteristic paired window configuration of Art Deco towers and reinventing the language to suit contemporary aluminum and glass unitized cladding,” the World Architecture Festival said in a description.
The Citizen is across the street from the Oklahoma City National Memorial & Museum.
Architecture firm HKS was nominated for the interior design of its own Atlanta office at Terminus 100. HKS designed the workspace to support neurodiversity within its staff, “counteracting the architectural design industry known for hyper-competitive sprints, tight deadlines, long hours, and never-ending tasks,” according to the festival’s website.
The Embassy of Australia in Washington, D.C., was nominated in the category for public buildings. Designed by the Australian firm Bates Smart, the exterior is clad in reflective copper yet “is also respectful of the [capital’s] architectural style,” according to the World Architecture Festival description.
Shortlisted candidates in the U.S. and Canada include:
- Four Twenty Five restaurant, 425 Park Ave., New York; interior design by Foster & Partners.
- Smith & Mills restaurant, Rockefeller Center, New York; interior design by Woods Bagot.
- D.S. & Durga perfume store, Venice, California; interior design by Woods Bagot.
- Graoni Beach House, Malibu, California, designed by Montalba Architects.
- Park at Penn’s Landing, a public park and pavilion under construction in Philadelphia, designed by KieranTimberlake.
- Port of Montreal Tower designed by Provencher Roy.
- A Rolex boutique within the Royal de Versailles Jewellers store at 101 Bloor Street West in Toronto, designed by the Toronto firm Partisans and Italian architect Arturo Tedeschi.
- Pumphouse, a mixed-use project in Winnipeg, designed by the firm 5468796 Architecture.
The festival’s 2023 winner for World Building of the Year was Huizhen High School in Huizhen, China, designed by Approach Design Studio and Zhejiang University of Technology.