We’ll be tuning in live to see which projects take home prizes at the 2020 AIA East Tennessee Online Awards Gala. Several of our exciting projects are up for this year’s awards: The KUB Engineering Building, The New UT Student Union, Blackberry Farm Brewery, The Living Lattice, Tusculum Family Physicians and . We are honored to be a part of this celebration of design excellence, individual achievements, and fellowship in our East Tennessee Design Community!

While offering flexibility for our employees to work from home, we’re finding new ways to stay as connected and productive as ever.

Weekly firm-wide Zoom gatherings are giving us an opportunity to connect as a community, check-in on our friends, and maintain an open dialogue about the issues we are all facing.  The flex-setup has also given us an opportunity to explore exciting new technologies.  Weekly “SpeedCrits” have allowed us to collaborate on multiple projects through new Concept Board technologies.  We’ve been able to gain great insights and input from our whole team. 

While we look forward to being together again, we are inspired daily by our partners, clients, and teams’ creative and innovative collaboration.

The University of Tennessee Student Union, built in collaboration with the Christman Company as Construction Manager, was honored with the 2020 New Architecture Award.  Designed as a joint venture with BMa, the 395,000 SF building houses the largest auditorium on campus, meeting spaces and ballroom, offices, recreation, retail, and dining facilities, among other spaces.  BMa-MHM utilized a contemporary approach to Collegiate Gothic design for the facility, paying equal tribute to UT's heritage and its promise for the future.

The KUB Engineering Building was honored with the Environmental Stewardship Orchid Award. The 3-story, 41,000 SF office building was built adjacent to the existing Engineering + Operations Building on Knoxville Utilities Board’s Hoskins campus. The sustainable efforts made while designing and constructing the Engineering Building on KUB’s largest campus showcase to more than 1,000 employees that environmental responsibility is a core value at KUB.  This energy efficient building is designed to be LEED™ Certified and was completed in 2019.

 The Miller’s Building, a 2000 Orchid Award winner, took home the Mary Lou Horner Award which recognizes a former Orchid winner whose property has been beautifully maintained for at least 10 years since its original recognition as an Orchid Award winner.

For many years, the storefront of the Miller’s Building was occupied by daytime businesses that left most of its block of Gay Street dark and empty outside of daytime business hours. In the spirit of community revitalization, the Knoxville Utilities Board decided to open up the storefront of the Miller’s Building by leasing to two new retail tenants: Cruze Farm Ice Cream and Bliss/ Tori Mason Shoes. The renovation brings new life to Gay Street by replacing existing tinted windows and shades with transparent glazing and new finishes throughout. The foot traffic created by the added interest of the storefronts has strengthened the connection between shops and businesses along one of the community’s most prized streets.

These awards acknowledge projects that help to beautify our city, and we are honored to be 2020 winners!

Construction continues on The University of Tennessee Engineering Services Facility. In collaboration with SmithGroup out of Detroit, MHM designed this new 230,000 SF facility to contain flexible laboratory spaces, laboratory support spaces, general purpose classrooms, student spaces, innovation labs, maker spaces, and administrative spaces. The new facility will provide state-of-the-art instructional, research and development spaces for the Department of Nuclear Engineering and multiple other programs for freshman, undergraduate and graduate students of the College of Engineering.

In collaboration with the Christman Company as Construction Manager, two MHM projects were honored by the Associated General Contractors at the Build Knoxville 2019 Awards. The University of Tennessee Student Union, designed as a joint venture with BMa, is a 395,000 SF building which houses the largest auditorium on campus, meeting spaces and ballroom, offices, recreation, retail and dining facilities, among other spaces.  BMa-MHM utilized a contemporary approach to Collegiate Gothic design for the facility, paying equal tribute to UT's heritage and its promise for the future. The other project to receive recognition was the State Street Garage.  Designed to expand over time, the building recently added two additional parking deck levels, and is structured to accommodate still an additional structure above the top level in the future.  In association with the addition, a glass-covered pedestrian bridge now provides connectivity to Gay Street.