PROTO-ARCHITECTURE

The Gallery on Turtle Creek is a midrise residential project in the heart of one of the most popular areas of Dallas. At seven stories and approximately 230 units, I’m hoping this offering is going to provide a new option for high end contemporary urban living.  With a vertically integrated stack of amenities at the main corner, including a two story fitness and and outdoor rooftop terrace, as well as a Read the rest of this entry →

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. Read the rest of this entry →

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.  Read the rest of this entry →

As part of the Rowlett Comprehensive Planning Charrette, one of the items that came up in our group as we considered Area E (which includes the downtown, the Water’s Edge, the Waterfront Entertainment District, and several others) was an idea to move some or possibly a majority of city functions to a new City Hall building to be incorporated into the city owned land of the Water’s Edge Development.  My initial take was with some apprehension, because I rather think that any significant financial investment by the city in new construction should go for a new attraction or amenity for the citizens that might help in drawing people to Rowlett.  Thus, I’m not convinced that including a new City Hall in this development would act as the kind of magnet we are all hoping for.  Most of our group agreed, but not unanimously.

This then got me thinking about what civic and non-civic uses do act as attractors within the community.  I recently posted a poll on Surveymonkey.com to help.  Now, most of the 64 people that responded are Twitter users (which is how I got the word out – see a recent report on the demographics of Twitter users here) and so this probably isn’t a terribly accurate or appropriately broad scientific sampling.  Disclaimers aside, I still find it illuminating. Read the rest of this entry →

A couple weekends ago I took the dog for a walk through the Water’s Edge property to get a better feeling for the landscape.  As I’ve noted previously, the site is already home to the Rowlett Community Center and the Wet Zone water park, both of which are set against the magnificent backdrop of Pecan Grove Park.  The park is an amazing local amenity full of legacy pecan trees and with a great little paved walking trail.  The community center’s main gathering rooms have great walls of glass which look out upon this in dramatic fashion (as you can see in these images from the design charette here).  Nestled within are also benches, picnic tables and playgrounds that are often used on the weekends. Read the rest of this entry →

On June 27th I attended a meeting run by Lynda Humble, the Rowlett City Manager, concerning plans to develop the piece of city owned land known colloquially as the Water’s Edge.  The meeting was a preliminary affair, with the City attempting to provide citizens with as much information about the development process as possibly.  At the time, they were in the midst of negotiating a land lease deal between the City and a partnership between Stratford Land and LSC conveying upon them the rights to develop the site.   Joining Lynda were representatives for the developers including Steve Sanders, Director of Investments for Texas with Stratford, and Shayne Whitehead, Vice President & Chief Operating Officer for LSC. Read the rest of this entry →

“It’s hard to believe we’re in Dallas. Yet we’re closer to downtown Dallas than the Galleria is,” -Jerome Weeks Art & Seek

A local Audubon facility originally funded with the approved vote on the Trinity River Project back in 1998, whose land was purchased in 2008 by the City of Dallas, the Trinity Audubon Center is an offspring of the design studio of the renowned southwestern architect Antoine Predock.

I had the opportunity to visit the project several months ago during an AIA Leadership seminar in which we used the event center to consult with local leaders in sustainable design, and I’ll have to admit it was a singular locale for such a conference.  Predock has long been an architect I’ve watched, his designs often owing significantly, and all at once, to modernism, postmodernism, brutalism and ancient historical vernaculars.  His forms, for me, often evoked flavors of Corbusier, Wright, Goff, Johnson and Kahn, while always respecting the individuality of their location.  Locally he’s primarily known for his elegant Turtle Creek House designed in the early ’90s. Read the rest of this entry →

“Often the perception within the city is that the public thinks we are too stupid, crooked or lazy to work in the private sector, and that can lead to a defensive posture.”

Last Friday I had the opportunity to take part in an intimate forum with the Dallas City Manager Mary K. Suhm.   Mrs. Suhm is serving her fifth year as city manager for the City of Dallas. As city manager, Suhm is responsible for the daily operations of the municipal organization. She manages a staff of approximately 14,000 employees and a budget of nearly 3 billion. She was appointed city manager in June 2005 by the Dallas City Council. Prior to her appointment as city manager, Suhm served as interim city manager, first assistant city manager, assistant city manager, executive assistant director of Dallas Police, director of courts, assistant to the Mayor, and branch library manager for the City of Dallas.

During her three decades in municipal government, Mary Suhm has earned a national reputation among public administrators for creativity and innovation. Suhm, who earned master of business administration and master of library science degrees from the University of North Texas, has introduced performance measurement, customer service, benchmarking, strategic planning and other common business practices into municipal management operations to assure that Dallas city government runs efficiently, economically, and effectively. She received praise from all levels of government and the community for her leadership during Hurricanes Katrina and Rita after managing a large scale evacuation effort by establishing and operating two major shelters and a Disaster Recovery Center in Dallas.¹

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On May 13th, the Rowlett Community Center played host to one of the most amazingly bizarre spectacles I’ve seen in my 12 years in architecture.  A developer, Community Retirement Center of Rowlett, LLP, has chosen a location in Rowlett, TX (a sleepy little bedroom community, just outside of Dallas) in which to locate a TDHCA tax credit senior living development.  Now, to be clear, this is not managed care or a nursing home, these are apartments that are intended to cater to low income seniors (55+ yrs old).  You cannot get into the development unless you are at least 55 (or as young as 45 if the spouse of a someone 55+).

The developer started out with an adequate, if graphically underwhelming powerpoint that explained the TDHCA tax credit process, how Rowlett was rated by that organization as a 5 out of 6 on an internal scale of ‘need’ for this sort of facility, and about the requirements of the residents.  The age restrictions are noted above, and if I remember correctly the income levels for the 16 low-income units were +/-$14,000 for a single person, +/-$19,000 per year for a couple. Read the rest of this entry →

I stumbled upon this project by Ron Womack on my way to a client meeting several months ago.  I love these little architectural gems sprouting up around Dallas.  Every few months I drive somewhere I haven’t been in a while and am pleasantly surprised by a new contemporary development. Read the rest of this entry →