PROTO-ARCHITECTURE

As the country emerges from the great recession, my home town of Rowlett, TX is poised to make the most of the upturn and craft it’s future.  My wife and I have lived here since 2000, and this is frankly the first time we see any energy and optimism around the future development of our little burg.

For those who have never experienced it, this half day long charrette is organized by the city and the development team (comprising urban planners, architects, engineers, economist, etc.) to engage the citizenry and illicit feedback that will help shape the future of the plan going forward.  I engaged in the process for the first time as a citizen, and I hope that my professional experience in community and mixed-use/TOD development offered something unique. Read the rest of this entry →

Last week my wife and I attended the first in a series of interactive planning sessions associated with the Realize Rowlett 2020 campaign to redesign the city’s comprehensive plan.  Being more of a kick off meeting, the organization was such that several stations had been set about the community center room, each dealing with a particular aspect of the city like “people places” or “parks” and all had a map of the city with an associated board for listing citizens’ input. Read the rest of this entry →

I hate working in the office.  I never seem to get nearly as much done in the office during daylight hours as I do when  no one is around. You will almost never find me working late at the office or coming in early, and the times I’m in the office on the weekend probably coincide with the solar eclipse.  Now, don’t let that fool you into thinking I don’t martyr myself for the architectural cause with the best of them, I just don’t do it in the office.  I seriously love some of my coworkers as if they were family, but nevertheless, when I need to get things done I much prefer isolation and in this age of technology, with smartphones, VPN connections, and remote desktops, I frankly see spending any time in the office outside of normal working hours cumbersome. Read the rest of this entry →

This is an interesting video of a local WFAA newscast from one of my projects.  The West 7th development is a new, vibrant part of the downtown Fort Worth urban scene.  This phase consists of 96 market rate units in four stories above a podium with retail at the first floor.

In 2009 I was privileged to visit Japan as part of a HOGI Fellowship traveling scholarship.  My heart goes out to the people of Japan through this tragedy.  In my short ten days there, I was shown an impeccable level of warmth and hospitality that I will treasure for the rest of my life.  The Japanese people are an amazing nation, and they will surmount this. Read the rest of this entry →

Design Intelligence posted an interesting article last week concerning mentoring, and its evolution within the ever-changing nature of our profession.  The author, Mr. Stewart (an associate principal with Perkins+Will) makes a thoughtful analysis of the evolution of the practice of mentoring in architecture and how technology has put distance between the different levels of experience within the firm, inhibiting the mentoring process.  As a result, Mr. Stewart argues what is “desperately needed is the recommitment of every leader throughout the profession to re-instill the culture of mentorship that is fundamental to the profession.”  He goes on to say that “You can initiate creation of an internal mentoring program to augment your professional development program.” Read the rest of this entry →

At our firm, the office mantra is “Record all hours you work on the project, including overtime hours even if you aren’t paid for them,”  The reason for this is simple, when writing proposals for new projects, we mine the hourly data from previous projects continually, in an attempt to better refine our contracts.  Sure, you threw that schematic design package together in a week, but it didn’t take you just 40 hours, and so it would be absurd to assume that the next similar project would take only 40 hours.  No, it took you an additional 20 hours of overtime that week to hammer it out, so write it down. Read the rest of this entry →

Unfortunately for the rest of the nation, San Diego really has the perfect climate for modern and contemporary architecture to thrive and I’ve been an admirer of Jonathan Segal’s work for many years, so when I had the opportunity to visit the town for a conference, I seized the chance to experience it in person. Read the rest of this entry →

Amassed on the Capitol Lawn

With a mob of black clad individuals large enough to make the lay person think someone really important just died, over 260 architects from all over the state of Texas came together at the Capitol building for the first annual Advocates for Architecture day.  Buses packed with participants from both Dallas and Houston left in the wee hours of the morning to trek to Austin, as well as hundreds of other architects making their own way.  The goal was help affect policy in the state legislatures by way of individual architects speaking directly with their own representatives.  While the Texas Society of Architects has an excellent lobbying machine in their own right, there is a distinct difference between a hired lobbyist talking to a representative and one of that representative’s own constituents discussing the issues that effect them.  Utilizing the hashtag #archday, participants tracked and commented on the event throughout the day via twitter. Read the rest of this entry →

A week from tomorrow I’ll be accompanying a couple hundred fellow architects in a state wide political outreach.  Architects from all over the state of Texas will converge on Austin to speak to our representatives and address the issues that most concern our profession.  You can follow the event live via Twitter with the hashtag #archday.