OLIN accepts Philip Hanson Hiss award at Selby Gardens

By Ian Swaby
| 5:00 a.m. April 2, 2025

Architecture Sarasota President Marty Hylton, and Project Manager Marni Burns and Chief Purpose Officer Richard Roark of OLIN pose as Roark holds the award.

Sarasota
Neighbors

Climate change and coastal resilience are routinely involved in daily conversation, said Architecture Sarasota Board Chair Anne Essner.

However, she said the work of landscape architecture and urban design firm OLIN, one company involved in the master plan of Marie Selby Botanical Gardens, helped the facility of the Downtown Sarasota Campus withstand last year's storms.

Architecture Sarasota presented the firm with the Philip Hanson Hiss award during a ceremony held at Selby Gardens on March 28.

Philip Hanson Hiss III, who influenced the Sarasota School of Architecture and helped found New College of Florida, is the namesake of the award, which honors current architectural pioneers.

"Quite frankly, it says OLIN on this award, but should also say Selby Gardens," said Marty Hylton III, president of Architecture Sarasota, noting Selby Gardens' role of envisioning the project.

"Just as Hiss fostered a community of forward-thinking architects like Paul Rudolph, whose Umbrella House became an icon of the Sarasota School, OLIN cultivates a collaborative approach, deeply respecting the site, the cultural context and programmatic possibilities of each project," Hylton also said.

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Chief Purpose Officer Richard Roark, of OLIN, accepted the award.

"To see our work platformed, the work at Selby and the work of our practice throughout the world, it keeps us honest and it keeps us thankful, and we know it means something to people as well," he said. "We know that it's doing its job."

Phase One of the project, completed in 2024, includes 188,030 square feet of facilities, such as the Morganroth Family Living Energy Access Facility, which includes the world's first net-positive energy restaurant entirely utilizing solar power; the Steinwachs Family Plant Research Center; and the Jean Goldstein Welcome Center.

Phase Two will include a conservatory complex, a learning pavilion, and key landscape features. Selby Gardens announced on March 25 that it had raised $50 million toward Phase Two, which is 82% of its goal.

Marty Hylton, president of Architecture Sarasota; Jennifer Rominiecki, president and CEO of Marie Selby Botanical Gardens; and Chief Purpose Officer Richard Roark of OLIN gather together.

Brittany Perrone and her husband Ryan Perrone, and Don Cooper and his wife Hyun Cooper

The Morganroth Family Living Energy Access Facility

Architect Damien Blumetti and his wife Erin Blumetti, and Kathryn Parks and her husband, architect Jonathan Parks

Richard Roark, chief purpose officer of OLIN, Muffi Hiss, the daughter of Philip Hanson Hiss III, and Project Manager Marni Burns of OLIN, gather together. Hiss said of the annual award, "It's a great honor to the family, and we very much appreciate it, and it's a wonderful memorial to him, really, and he would be happy to know that what he believed in was being passed on to younger people."

Architecture Sarasota Board Chair Anne Essner gives a speech.

The Philip Hanson Hiss Award was presented to the urban design firm OLIN.

Marty Hylton of Architecture Sarasota presents the award to Richard Roark of OLIN.

Lauren Schinnow of Architecture Sarasota and original Sarasota School of Architecture member Carl Abbott.

author

Ian Swaby

Ian Swaby is the Sarasota neighbors writer for the Observer. Ian is a Florida State University graduate of Editing, Writing, and Media and previously worked in the publishing industry in the Cayman Islands.