The firm has been recognized at the national level for two landmark Sarasota, FL, projects: the Marie Selby Botanical Gardens Master Plan Phase 1, honored with the AIA COTE Top Ten Award in collaboration with Overland Partners, and The Bay “One Park for All,” honored with the AIA Regional and Urban Design Award in collaboration with Project Lead Agency Landscape + Planning.

The AIA Committee on the Environment Top Ten Award recognizes the ten most sustainably responsible built projects in the United States each year. Phase 1 of the Marie Selby Botanical Gardens Master Plan earned this distinction through a comprehensive approach to regenerative design that integrates architectural intervention, ecological systems, and public mission into a single coherent vision.

The campus is organized around three primary facilities: the Living Energy Access Facility, the Welcome Center, and the Plant Research Center. Each building is designed not as an isolated architectural object but as a functional component of a larger ecological system. Taken together, they demonstrate that institutions dedicated to the study of plant life can also serve as working models of environmental stewardship at the campus scale.

The project began under the architectural design leadership of Overland Partners, Inc., and was carried to completion by Sarasota locals Sweet Sparkman Architects, whose deep familiarity with Florida’s coastal environment and the Gardens’ institutional values shaped the realized work. The result is a historic Sarasota site fundamentally reimagined as a living campus oriented around environmental performance and biological education.

The project targets Living Building Challenge certification, one of the most rigorous sustainability standards in the built environment, requiring that every material, energy source, and water system meet strict criteria for ecological and human health. These are not aspirational benchmarks but operational commitments embedded in the design from the outset. Integrating architecture, ecology, and community, the design achieves Net Positive Energy through a 1.2 MW photovoltaic array. On-site rainwater systems are engineered to prevent contaminated runoff from entering the Hudson Bayou, while the campus manages its own hydrological cycle, treating water not as a resource to be discharged but as one to be retained, cleaned, and returned to the landscape.

Learn more about the Selby Phase 1 project on our website.

Phase 1 was brought to life by its dedicated project team: Overland Partners, Inc., Kimley-Horn, One80 Solar, Willis Smith Construction, Olin Partnership Ltd., Arup US, Inc., Metcalfe, LAM Partners

The AIA Regional and Urban Design Award recognizes projects that demonstrate excellence in the design of places at the scale of the city and the region. The Bay, Sarasota’s first signature waterfront park, received this honor for its successful transformation of publicly owned bayfront land into an inclusive, sustainable, and deeply civic destination.

The project was led by Agency Landscape + Planning, with Sweet Sparkman Architects contributing to the architectural components that anchor the park’s public gathering spaces. The collaboration brought together expertise in landscape urbanism and architectural design to produce a park that operates simultaneously at the scale of the individual visitor and the scale of the regional community.

The park design was developed through a five-year public engagement process with extensive community input, a timeline that reflects both the complexity of the site and the seriousness with which the design team treated civic participation. Occupying a site rich in cultural history, The Bay also pays tribute to the former Sarasota County Library designed by Walter Netsch of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. Drawing inspiration from Netsch’s Field Theory, The Nest, within The Bay, reinterprets geometric themes to create a dynamic, open-air structure that bridges the nostalgic past with the forward-looking vision of the park.

Phase 1 of the 53-acre development incorporates a pier, a great lawn, shade structures, and a food pavilion. The architecture supports public gathering spaces with generous shade and shelter areas at the edges of the great lawn, providing a framework for both programmed events and everyday informal use. The design succeeds because it does not attempt to resolve every ambiguity in advance; it creates conditions in which the community can continue to shape the park through its use.

Learn more about The Bay “One Park for All” on our website.

The Bay was made possible with our diverse team of collaborators: Agency Landscape + Planning, Jon F. Swift Construction / HASKELL, Kimley-Horn, Studio Ummo, Sasaki Associates, Moffatt & Nichol, Cummins Cederberg Inc, Horton Lees Brogden Lighting Design, HR&A Advisors, Kathy Blaha Consulting, Stutler Strategies, Monstrum, Engineering Matrix, Inc., Wilhelm Brothers, Snell Engineering, The Urban Conga, and past Agents: Eamonn Hutton, Matthew Macchietto, Tatyana Moscicki-Tsapley, and Estello Raganit.

The 2026 Design Awards were presented by the American Institute of Architects, the profession’s foremost national body, in recognition of built work that advances design excellence across technical, environmental, and civic dimensions.