{"id":245463,"date":"2012-10-12T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2012-10-12T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sdnews.com\/vons-mission-hills-receives-onion-for-architecture-design\/"},"modified":"2012-10-12T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2012-10-12T07:00:00","slug":"vons-mission-hills-receives-onion-for-architecture-design","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/vons-mission-hills-receives-onion-for-architecture-design\/","title":{"rendered":"Vons Mission Hills receives \u2018Onion\u2019 for architecture & design"},"content":{"rendered":"

Store given designation at SD Architectural Foundation annual awards<\/strong><\/p>\n

Por Antonio Rey | Editor SDUN<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Vons
Vons Mission Hills, located at 450 University Ave. (Photo by Darren Bradley)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

At the 2012 Orchids & Onion awards ceremony and silent auction held Thursday, Oct. 11, the season\u2019s annual list of architectural and design winners and losers were announced. Winners, called \u201cOrchids\u201d included the Chicano Park restoration and losers, or \u201cOnions,\u201d included the Miramar College campus.<\/p>\n

In Uptown, the newly completed Vons Mission Hills located at 450 University Ave. was awarded an Onion for both architecture and design. Described as a suburban grocery store \u201cplopped \u2026 on top of a parking garage in Mission Hills\u201d on the Orchids & Onions website, the store opened March 29 after years of planning and months of construction.<\/p>\n

The San Diego Architectural Foundation (SDAF) did give credit to the designers as well as Vons owners for working closely with the community, which included the Mission Hills Town Council, Uptown Planners, the San Diego Planning Commission and the City Council.<\/p>\n

The main complaint against the 58,000-square-foot store was the structure\u2019s parking garage, which sits slightly below street level, allowing for added light and ventilation. \u201cThe possibility for an interesting, active and vibrant street scene is now non-existent,\u201d the website states.<\/p>\n

Mark Fehlman, president of the Mission Hills Town Council during the design process, posted a comment on the Orchids & Onions website before the awards were announced, saying it would be a \u201chuge mistake\u201d to award the project an Onion.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe community of Mission Hills and a panel of architects, landscape architects and urban planners worked on this project with Vons and their architects from the beginning, and approved the final design,\u201d Fehlman wrote. \u201cAlthough it is not the ideal sidewalk oriented, small-scale retail that we all love, it was a compromise that balanced street orientation, scale, parking, art and the goals of Vons.\u201d<\/p>\n

What began in the 1970s, the Orchids & Onions awards were purchased by SDAF in 2004 and re-launched in 2006 as an educational tool and fundraiser for the nonprofit. SDAF uses the awards to educate and promote outstanding architecture, planning and urban design in the San Diego region.<\/p>\n

For the awards, SDAF selects a jury of design professionals and artists to determine the winners and losers based on public nominations. This year there were 149 nominations: 134 Orchids and 15 Onions, of which the Mission Hills Vons store was one.<\/p>\n

The 2012 jury included Robin Wilson Carrier of Robin Wilson Interior Design, Nathan Lee Colkitt of Colkitt & Co., Catherine Herbst of Rinehart Herbst, Marcie Harris of Marcie Harris Landscape Architecture, artist and designer Christopher Puzio, and Gregory Strangman of the LWP Group.<\/p>\n

Several other locations in Uptown were nominated for awards this year, all Orchids, however there were no other winners. Among the nominees were D Bar and Snooze restaurants in Hillcrest, the Big Front Door restaurant on Park Boulevard, the IBEE Tree mosaic at the Alice Birney School in University Heights, the Hillcrest Pride Flag monument, the Sharp Memorial Hospital green roof in Bankers Hill and the Aldine Drive Slope Restoration Project in Talmadge.<\/p>\n

In North Park, the retail center that includes the Fresh & Easy grocery store on University Avenue was nominated for an Orchid, as was the Media Arts Center\u2019s \u201cTake Back the Alley Project” the Seven Grand Whiskey Bar, and the three restored Class 1 streetcars, among others.<\/p>\n

This year saw the first time the public could vote on all of the People\u2019s Choice nominees, 21 in total. In previous years, public vote was limited to one project. Program co-chair Pauly De Bartolo said in a press release, \u201cThis new feature of People\u2019s Choice voting encourages more public input, thereby offering the citizens of San Diego even more of a say in what they like and don\u2019t about how San Diego is designed and developed.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Orchids & Onions awards were held at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego in La Jolla, Calif. Sam Zien, host of \u201cSam the Cooking Guy,\u201d was master of ceremonies.<\/p>\n

<\/h2>\n

2012 Orchids & Onions official selections<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Grand Orchid<\/strong>: Chicano Park Restoration<\/p>\n

Grand Onion<\/strong>: Miramar College Campus<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

People\u2019s Choice Orchid<\/strong>: San Diego County Operations Center Campus<\/p>\n

People\u2019s Choice Onion<\/strong>: City Heights Family Health Center<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Orchids<\/strong><\/p>\n

Architecture:<\/strong><\/p>\n

High Tech K8 Chula Vista<\/p>\n

UCSD Medical Education and Telemedicine Building<\/p>\n

Harbor Aquatic Center Restroom Facility<\/p>\n

Ocean Beach Comfort Station<\/p>\n

Charles David Keeling Apartments at UCSD<\/p>\n

Landscape Architecture:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Charles David Keeling Apartments at UCSD<\/p>\n

Adaptive Reuse:<\/strong><\/p>\n

SDG&E Innovation Center<\/p>\n

Interior Design:<\/strong><\/p>\n

car2go<\/p>\n

Espiga<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Onions<\/strong><\/p>\n

Architecture:<\/strong><\/p>\n

City Heights Family Health Center<\/p>\n

Mission Apartments<\/p>\n

Urban Design:<\/p>\n

Hilton Bayfront<\/p>\n

Architecture & Urban Design:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Vons Mission Hills<\/p>\n

Historic Preservation:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Demolition of Star Building<\/p>\n

Demolition of Aztec Center at SDSU<\/p>\n

 <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Store given designation at SD Architectural Foundation annual awards By Anthony King | SDUN Editor At the 2012 Orchids & Onion awards ceremony and silent auction held Thursday, Oct. 11, the season\u2019s annual list of architectural and design winners and losers were announced. Winners, called \u201cOrchids\u201d included the Chicano Park restoration and losers, or \u201cOnions,\u201d […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":245464,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11555","_seopress_titles_title":"Vons Mission Hills receives \u2018Onion\u2019 for architecture & design","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11547,11551,11550,11555],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-245463","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","category-news","category-top-stories","category-uptown-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245463","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=245463"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245463\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/245464"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=245463"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=245463"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=245463"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}