The $263.3-million highway, deck, bridge and garage project restores Pierre L’Enfant’s original 1791 master plan for the capital city

Annual Best Projects competition honors 33 projects in several categories

Five years ago, the catastrophic collapse of the structure supporting Runway 5’s emergency overrun area left a 140-ft vertical gash of partially reinforced fill looming over a 540,000-cu-yd debris field. It also obliterated an adjacent road.

Working with the city of Alexandria, Va., Dept. of Recreation, Parks and Cultural Activities and Alexandria City Public Schools, the Keller Construction Management team replaced and expanded an existing elementary school and recreation center, combining them into one building with shared facilities.

The McCausland Lower School team delivered Springside Chestnut Hill Academy’s first major building since the 2010 merger of its all-girls and all-boys schools, bringing both together in one building.

The 103,000-sq-ft facility combines conventional classroom and hands-on instruction for a diverse range of career paths, from traditional vocations to criminal justice, information technology and business.

In the heart of Lafayette College, the five-story, 104,000-sq-ft academic science and laboratory building’s hillside site sits atop a subsurface rock vein. 

Envisioned by architect Steven Holl as a “pavilion on the park,” the new Winter Visual Arts Center rises four stories to meet the canopy of neighboring old-growth, large-diameter trees on the campus of Franklin & Marshall College.