By Lauren Sutter Staff Writer. SRQ Magazine, August 2025
Four adjoining walls may make a space inhabitable, but after evolving through the design process realized buildings become activated with purpose and narrative. Celebrating the year’s most impressive multi-unit and multi-story projects, the 4WALLS Building of the Year Design Competition recognizes the region’s built portfolio with the 4WALLS Platinum, Gold and Silver Awards. Special thanks to judges Stephen Charles Smith, AIA, NCARB, LEED AP and Keith Nelson, LEED AP BD+C
Honoring pioneering Black educator Emma E. Booker, Sarasota’s re-imagined high-school theater pairs the campus’s award-winning magnet arts program with a venue worthy of its legacy. A full interior-and-site reorientation now opens the once-inward facility to North Orange Avenue, inviting the community in through a two-story, faceted curtain-wall lobby whose high-performance Low-E glazing floods the space with natural light while boosting energy efficiency.
