Awards roll in for former student’s ‘human-sized’ birdhouse design

While temporarily displayed at a San Antonio park in 2014, a ‘human-sized’ birdhouse designed by former Texas A&M design student Patrick Winn delighted park visitors and has since racked up numerous honors including a [design award] (https://texasarchitects.org/v/design-awards/) from the Texas Society of Architects.

Winn, a senior designer at [Overland Partners] (http://www.overlandpartners.com/) , a San Antonio design firm, also directed a team of more than 40 coworkers who built the structure, known as “ [The Gourd] (http://www.overlandpartners.com/projects/the-gourd/) ,” as part of a birdhouse contest hosted by the San Antonio Botanical Gardens. Winn earned a Bachelor of Environmental Design degree at Texas A&M in 2003.

“The Gourd” was among six of 16 designs created by San Antonio-area architects and design teams for the contest that were chosen for display at the gardens for two months beginning in late March 2014.

Instead of designing a miniature human house, said an entry in the Overland Partners website, as is typically seen in most manmade birdhouses, Winn’s inspiration was the shape of the bottle gourd, first used in its hollowed-out form by Native Americans to attract purple martins.

Winn’s birdhouse design was the shape of a bottle gourd, first used in a hollowed-out form by Native Americans to attract purple martins, instead of a miniature human house design typically seen in most manmade birdhouses, said an entry in Overland Partners’ website.

“The organic form inspires creativity and imagination, particularly in children, who affectionately nicknamed the structure their ‘pineapple house’ and ‘spaceship,’ while pushing the limits of digital design and fabrication,” said the Overland website.

The gourd was built with 70 steel plates, each unique in shape and size, that were fabricated using [CNC] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CNC_router) laser cutting technology.

The plates were assembled around a robin’s egg blue internal octahedron structure and perforated with more than 1,000 Mason jars, which illuminate the structure’s interior while providing views to the outside world.

The Gourd was one of 14 design award winners from the Texas Society of Architects, which recognizes outstanding architectural and urban design projects by architects practicing in Texas to promote public interest in design excellence.

The annual competition focuses statewide attention on the quality of the built environment while highlighting the important role architects play in every community.

In addition to the TSA award, The Gourd was honored with Architect Newspaper’s Best Fabrication 2014 award, Architizer’s 2015 A+ Award for Self-Initiated Projects and an honorable mention in the American Steel Institute’s IDEAS 2 Award competition.

Winn and his wife Michele have also launched [TADA] (http://www.wearetada.com/index-montauk/) , a creative design business, with his wife Michele, a creative designer, graphic designer, personal trainer and model.

Recent TADA projects include a playground fort, furniture and an art installation.

Winn’s penchant for designing notable projects was already on display as a student at Texas A&M, where he was a key contributor to the design and construction of a [tower] (http://archcomm.arch.tamu.edu/archive/news/winter2004/StacellStructure.html) to honor the late architecture professor Alan Stacell.

The structure, which rose 43 feet from the Langford atrium floor, owed its structural integrity to the principles of tensegrity, one of Stacell’s academic interests.