Nestled in along Henderson Avenue in Dallas, a site that is vibrant with new urban activity, the Alta Henderson development makes for a quiet and sophisticated neighbor amidst a lot of architectural clatter.  I frankly must admit that I am personally rather jealous concerning this development.  Our firm had been asked to produce a conceptual design for this exact site and for an almost identical program, and the design we’d envisioned was a rather revolutionary one for the industry.  As a result, I was really sad to see the client sell the land in the pursuit of other ventures.  In any event, while the project we designed didn’t get built, the ideas we forged there lead do some intriguing R&D that has since resulted in other work, so it isn’t a total loss.

The fascinating point, however, is that the current solution is extremely similar to ours.  That isn’t to suggest that there was any exchange of intellectual property, no, I merely find it funny that the architect solved the site almost exactly the same way.  Basically an elongated “U” shaped building that fronts the public street edge on one face which then embraces the internal surface and engaged garage parking toward the back alley side.  The project is located in Dallas’ MF-2 zoning which restricts the project to 3 stories unless the owner would like to change that zoning with a PD or other legal means.  As a result, the cost valuation of the land makes it difficult to park with any structured parking.  The architects dealt with this through mostly surface parking and engaged garage parking beneath the units on the parking side. They did a decent job squeezing in some outdoor space, since the site almost completely precludes the opportunity for a true courtyard.  That said, while the space is executed nicely, it’s really just a smidge of plaza in the middle of a parking lot.

The materials are handled very well.  While all the facades are largely flat in order to maximize the amount of net rentable on the site, the way they break up the exterior work.  By varying color and texture between a dark brick color, stained shingles, and stark red cementitious siding, the face is executed with a substantial amount of visual movement, defying it’s geometry.  There are some poorly executed details, the balcony cladding chief among them with a very “garden apartment” look to the cementitious board & trim, but for the most part, the design is executed very subtlety.

I really like the stack bond of the brick, and the sloping soffit at the overhang.  The exit stairs are also well designed with very clear opening and hierarchy.  Of interest, I typically see parapeting at the street side of a design and sloped/shingled roofs toward the back or courtyard side to save money, while utilizing the parapet look as a more urban morphology.  Here they do precisely the reverse, and I think it works.  A fear I see a lot of the time from owners and cities is a concern that a long, uninterrupted roof line is to a project’s detriment, but the roof line here is only broken once, at the vehicular entry near the center of the facade.  I think with the narrowness of the street one is put at a perspective where this is less of an emphasis.  While the building touches the ground easily enough, the patios and wood railing fencing them off lack a similar grace.  They feel more like a wood barrier wall than an effective divider of space, but I do appreciate that they are low, and not high fences.

Overall I’m really impressed and am happy to see such a quality development occur on this stretch of Henderson where such a brick-a-brac of differing style had begun proliferating.

Monday night we met in City Hall to review the progress the consultants had made in engineering the second phase of the Rowlett 2020 planning initiative.  Altogether, I think those who are looking to participate in the process are going to be impressed with the content they will have access to to help them make informed decisions to help shape the future of Rowlett.

To learn more about the second phase of this process, you can visit the City’s website here.

This last weekend  I headed out to the Water’s Edge property to get a little exercise and give my stir crazy dog a chance to run and run to his heart’s content.  If you’d like to read my earlier post from this summer where I did a similar walk of the property, you can do so here.  I decided to return this winter because it would be a much less daunting jungle of poison ivy than it had been last July, and I wanted to document some areas along the waterfront that I hadn’t before. 

Below I’ve included a map noting the perspectives from which the photographs have been taken.  These images mostly address areas along the edge of the lake, East or South of the railroad.

As before, I was again struck with the amazing topography the site offers.  While far too many developers would prefer a nice flat site because development costs are much reduced, I feel it’s the sites with movement that often become the most intriguing.

[1] One of the things I noted in my earlier walk was my preconception that the rail would be elevated above the average terrain.  In fact, it is quite the opposite, with the great slope of the main property dramatically falling down to the tracks. From there, it’s a short walk to the edge of the lake.

[2] The vista to the lake at the edge of the water is magnificent, but unfortunately where I’m standing is on the north side of the rail tracks, beyond where the City and Planners (to this point) have conceived of the development embracing the lake.  This is due, mainly, to the idea of the rail being a formidable obstacle separating any development.  Frankly, however, with the elevations of the rail so low, I simply don’t see any reason why an on-grade crossing (or two) couldn’t be an achievable goal within any master plan.

[3] One of the things one notices is the extensive abundance of trees.  This is a remarkable feature for any prospective development in this region, and too many master plans have begun with the assumption that all existing vegetation can be bulldozed and mitigated with new planting simply because its a less expensive process than working with the vegetation in place.  Any agreement the City embarks upon in this area should have clear qualifiers in the agreement as to how much existing vegetation should remain.  Mitigation is an acceptable option of most sites, but this is a singularly unique opportunity in Rowlett, and it would be a shame if the natural assets of the land are ground asunder in favor of a simple caliper calculation that does little to re-invoke the beauty of the existing.

[4] I’ve progressed through the trees on to a point jutting out into the lake.  There are some distinctly unique natural land formations in this area, and how they engage the lake holds much potential.

[5] Now, having continued south I’ve again crossed the railroad and am heading back down to the area South of where the railroad shoots out in to the lake.  This is the prime portion the developers and the City (to this point) have considered the focal location for the development’s access to the lake.

[6] It really is a beautiful area, but it’s very narrow, and tucked up into the armpit of the land bridge supporting the railroad.

In the end, this property continues to intrigue, even as the appearance of the George Bush Turnpike has been completed and affords significant difficulties for engaging the site.  With exits well before and after the property, I’ve become even less excited about the opportunity of any significant amount of retail here, without some manner of destination to draw people in.  But that’s a topic for another post.

Just one gratuitous shot of the puppy:

I’ve been asked to participate as a member of the Rowlett 2020 Phase II Advisory Committee and last night we met to kick off phase 2 of the the Rowlett 2020 development initiative.  The goal of the committee is to vet the information that the consultant is composing to engage the citizenry in phase 2 of the process.  This will include public meetings and engagement sessions designed to illicit feedback from anyone in Rowlett who would like to help affect the future development of Rowlett.  You can review my posts on phase 1 of the process here.

David Lake, FAIA

I feel that one of the most imposing challenges that we face as contemporary designers and architects is the significance of regionalism in the design aesthetic.  While we might all agree that a Bourbon Street simulacrum of an urban typology is not relevant when transplanted to Illinois, nor is an Adirondack lodge become office building appropriate in Texas, there can also be a

Ted Flato, FAIA

very fair argument that asks “why does your clean, unadorned minimalist Dutch modern design belong in my historic Georgia downtown?” The reality of regional styles is firmly imprinted in everyone’s minds, whether they realize it or not and new architecture is always compared and contrasted against the local vernacular.

Hotel San Jose

Lake | Flato, a firm based in San Antonio, TX, has evolved an incredible architectural vocabulary that is both new and contemporary, while also utilizing relevant regional forms and materials in such a way that seems to address both sides of the debate.  Their work is clearly “of” Texas, and their use of limestone, exposed metal and wood evoke very clear regional sentimentality while manifesting very contemporary design.  While this may sound easy and logical, very few contemporary designers are doing this, and and even fewer as achieving the success and broad acceptance that Lake | Flato has.

World Birding Center

As they predominately practice in the Texas & Southwest regions, their designs directly reflect that aesthetic, and their materials, especially their use of limestone, benefit greatly from being located within the Texas hill country.   Their aesthetics often speak of ranch houses and grain silo’s, but their forms manifest as bold interpretations of within modern rule sets.  I can’t emphasis enough how important it is for design to be of the place, that is it a compliment, not an imposition, and it an ever occurring challenge in my own work.  I feel that Lake | Flato achieves this brilliantly.

Brown Residence

Trammell Crow Visitor Education Pavilion

Francis Parker School

Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center for the Arts

I’ve appreciated Sullivan’s work like I appreciated the paintings of the impressionist masters like Monet, Degas or Renoir who, to many a contemporary eye, produced works that feel more classical than revolutionary, because while they were breaking the academic rules of their art, they did it with seductively new techniques, and in a way that enhanced the experience.  Sullivan’s architect does a very similar thing.  With his skyscrapers, for instance, he respected the tripartite arrangement of “base-shaft-capital” fundamental to classical design, but applied it in to the typology in ways that enhanced the experience and allowed his architecture to evolve.  Gothic flying buttresses make sense on a cathedral, they do not make sense atop a skyscraper.  The brain reads patterns and appreciates being able to able to draw on know morphologies with new experiences, and Sullivan understood this.  The rusticated bases of his skyscrapers gave a firm sense of grounding, the intermediate floors drew the eye up the height of the building, and the appropriately sized capital gave proper visual termination.  These buildings felt new, were new, but manifest with an architectural coherency that belied their revolutionary reality.

Stylistically, I was also enamored with Sullivan’s ability to conceive beautifully elaborate detail work, often inspired by natural forms, erupting from his pencil in brilliant sketches.  These sketches would then be translated into iron and stone, but would not simply be used as decoration.  I’ve felt that detailing, for him, always had a purpose.  That purpose may be to create a sense of entry or to emphasize an arrangement, but was never simply decoration for decoration’s sake.

I’ve always found this subtle manipulation of the rules fascinating.  It’s easy to simply disavow any relationship to what had come before and force new forms to ‘be’, especially in this age of nearly infinite structural options.  I believe that the designs we truly enjoy are not simply sculptural monoliths, but there is reason behind the design, hence the infamous statement of Sullivan’s “form ever follows function”.  It is not the form that becomes engaging then, but the thought behind it.

Wainwright Building

Carson Pirie Scott Building

Merchants' National Bank

National Farmers' Bank

Located in San Fransisco, the firm benefits greatly from the tantalizing crucible in which the local vibe, urban culture and artistically sophisticated combine to produce a fertile ground for design opportunities.  That said, being in this sector of design myself, many don’t understand the economic pressures placed on the typology, whose funding and financial returns are on completely difference scales than most commercial development, and how that, frankly, separates the innovative from the not.  It’s easy to just give up and say “but the funding just isn’t there for that”, while it’s a quite a more challenging avenue to take these hurdles as a opportunities to foster new thinking.   David Baker + Partners does this on a daily basis, constantly refining what urban living is, and can be.

Folsom + Dore

Armed largely with simple forms and vibrant colors, their designers attack problems with inexpensive materials, quite often simply cementitious siding or stucco, sometimes a strategic smattering of metal panels or wood, and create engaging environments for a variety of users.  While this may sound like an easy, and possibly obvious solution, the subtlety is in the execution.  All too often I see the use of color is mistimed of overdone and comes off garish, or employed too sparingly and without forethought leaving the project morpholigically disjointed and without a clearly defined self image.

Armstrong Senior Housing

Their works aren’t just intended for that hip young urbanite on the Bay Area scene.  In fact, their work challenges preconceptions of low income housing, senior housing and any other function that has been hijacked by the eclectic, the derivative, or the nostalgic.  HUD financed, SRO [Single Resident Occupancy] Housing, bridge housing, any venue that people can call home, DB+P affords the highest level of design to give people, all people, an excellent living experience.

It’s easy to think of housing as simply “people containers” unless their is a financially marketable reason to consider otherwise.  However, this is one of the few sectors of architectural design where we get to directly impact people’s lives through good design.  DB+P is one of those leading the charge.

Armstrong Place

888 Seventh Street

SOMA Residences

While the fundamentals of form are well executed by a great many designers, texture is such an incredibly important and overlooked aspect that is all too often not given it’s due.  Material selection, placement, and execution can be very critical to communicate everything that a design intends.  Miller Hull handles this expertly, and I encourage you to take a deep look into their body of work.

Safari Drive Condominiums

1310 East Union

Novotny Cabin

Epiphany School

While I had seen many of his works during and after the war, is wasn’t until I was introduced to his 1922 submission for the Chicago Tribune Tower Competition that whole new worlds opened for me.  His entry, at a time less than a handful of years removed from the First World War, severed this association with the past (much as the war hearkened the end of the old world) not only incorporated his modern elegance, but suggesting a level of futuristic advancement few others, I believe, had begun to consider.

This tower was everything that others would not achieve for thirty years.  While some architects of the period were on that edge, thinking in new terms, with new tools, and new shapes, this work was one of the few I saw as a gateway into how one can use architecture not just as a revolution in construction or shelter, but as a way to shape the future.

As a result, I subsequently returned to his earlier work in greater detail.  While yes, it was innovative, and yes it redefined the profession, it always had a balanced elegance to it that I found engaging.  Not as spartan as Loos, not as rigorous as Le Corbusier, instead preserving a particular regal sense of hierarchy that is distinctly “old world” but with a vocabulary which shown fresh and new while appropriately corresponding to the industrial age. Much like Sullivan used the traditional tripartite arrangement of classical design, reformulated and reformatted to server a more modern typology, Gropius’s early forms spoke a new language, but in coherent ways.  The movement and interactive nature of the Bauhaus curtain wall, the proud stance of the Fagus Factory, elegant creatures of the machine age both, but still respectful of their heritage.

I think it is important to understand the past and be respectful of it in design, especially when a designer chooses to diverge from that past.  Similar to an Italian Mannerist, Gropius understood the rules before making a conscious and deliberately calculated push to break them.

Bauhaus, Dessau

Bauhaus Curtain Wall

Fagus Factory

Fagus Factory Curtain Wall

I’m going to be posting infrequent looks different architects who’ve inspired me.  I’m at a point in my career that I’m rather quite happy with the opportunities that I’ve had, and am very comfortable where my design is going, and I thought such makes it an opportune time to reflect back on the architects who have influenced me.  Possibly a self indulgence, the intention is for me to rigorously revisit the work of designers I hold in high esteem, and consider how their philosophies have become manifest in my own work.  I also see it as an opportunity to critically consider my own design in deference to these masters, and work to elevate it to a higher level.

This list is not intended to be comprehensive, and is in no particular order.  There will be many notable exception to this list who may very well appear on other lists of great architects, but for me, they are not whom I consider to have had significant impact on my thinking.  This is also not intended to be simply a history lesson of notable designers and their works.  Rather, I hope to achieve a more concise documentation of what, for me, has stood out about the work each have done.  I hope this might possibly reveal designers to readers whom they’ve not come to know, or better yet, see designers in a light they may not have before.  As always, I hope it sparks an open a vigorous discussion.