Want buildings suited to these troubling times? Consider the 12 winners of the 2009 Design Awards, given by the American Institute of Architects, Houston. Though the projects got off the ground years ago, most feel eerily in tune with the zeitgeist. Like Studio Red’s New Regional Planning Office (which won for Renovation and Restoration), almost all are modest and ecologically sustainable, substituting careful planning for square footage and expensive materials.

ARCHITECTURE

• The Grove at Discovery Green,a restaurant designed by PageSoutherlandPage, feels like a natural extension of its park location. The building — set to be rated LEED Gold — is super-ecosensitive.

• For the John Cooper School in The Woodlands,Morris Architects designed a performing arts theater. Despite the project’s modest budget, it delivers a 550-seat full proscenium theater a black-box theater, and classrooms for band, choir and dance.

• For Baytown’s New Horizon Family Center,a shelter for both male and victims of sexual assault, Brave Architecture designed two buildings separated by a courtyard rock garden. The garden was nixed due to budget constraints — but toward the end of construction, Brave Architects, the center’s contractors and sub-contractors and the United Way of Baytown chipped in to create it pro bono.

RESIDENTIAL ARCHITECTURE

• A shady double-height porchlinks an elegant 1,800-square-foot house to the owner’s 700-square-foot office. Open rooms offer peaceful views of trees — a rarity among new houses in the inner city.

“I think what is particularly pleasing about this project was that it was not made with expensive stone exterior,” wrote judge Robert Silver. “It was not made with very fancy interior finishes. Rather, it depended upon for its effect the clarity of its organization.” Designed by Nonya Grenader.

INTERIOR ARCHITECTURE

• How to keep a low ceiling from making a high-tech startup’s offices seem dark and dim?m+a Architecture Studio exposed the ceiling structure and kept the furniture low and open. Judge Robert Silver praised the project’s “economy of means.”

• For a global management company, Rottet Studio designed a sleek office space.

• For a global management company, Rottet Studio designed a sleek office space.

“We like this design because of the restraint that was exhibited,” wrote judge Dan Rockhill.

RENOVATION AND RESTORATION

• When Rice University’s engineering department needed space for students to build things,it suggested rethinking the school’s old Central Kitchen, a modernist brick box that had been turned to office space. In the eco-sensitive remodeling by Stern & Bucek Architects, walls and low ceilings were ripped out, creating an open, factory-like space. A new long window gave the building style. And atop the old loading dock, the architects added a new classroom.

• Studio Red won for its New Regional Planning offices. (See Lisa Gray's column, A Mod gets modernized.)

ON THE BOARDS

• How to make a place for little kids in a neighborhood full of warehouses, commercial buildings and tear-down houses?In its plans for Blossom Heights Preschool, Truitt Foug Architects reuses an existing house as offices, and partially surrounds a grassy area with new construction, creating a cloistered, safe-feeling play area.

• Morris Architects drew up proposals for six primary schoolsin the Republic of Trinidad andTobago.

“Very intelligent in response to climate and function,” said Rockhill.

CITATION FOR ROOFTOP TERRACE

• In Kansas City, advertising agency Barkley leased the 50-year-old TWA Building to make a statement about sustainability and historic revitalization. Its renovation included a spectacular rooftop terrace.

“What was previously an unused and unusable part of the building has been transformed into really a delightful space with plantings and deck and trellises and small enclosed areas,” wrote Silver. What was once “the wasteland at the top of the building” became “the most elegant and most pleasant part of the entire project.”

CITATION FOR SUSTAINABILITY

• SPACE, the Solar Powered Attractive Container for Everyone,consists of two 20-foot shipping containers reconfigured as a prefab building. Judges were especially taken with the solar panels that allow the building to function off-the-grid.

Designed by Metalab as part of the University of Houston’s Green Building Components Research Initiative.