Last week the final judging occurred on the AIA Dallas YAF design competition to design playhouses for the 2010 ORIX Parade of Playhouses at NorthPark Center benefiting Dallas CASA. Recently, members of Dallas CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocates) teamed up with the Dallas Chapter of the American Institute of Architects (Dallas AIA) to coordinate an architectural design competition for the annual Parade of Playhouses charity event. A group within the chapter known as the Young Architects Forum (YAF) are the facilitators for this program. YAF is a committee that coordinates and promotes activities for young architects and interns while providing opportunities for networking, professional development and recognition. A ‘Young Architect’ is considered to be a practicing architect who has been licensed for ten years or less. The Parade of Playhouses, hosted each year at NorthPark Center, provides an opportunity to help abused and neglected children realize their dreams of finding safe, permanent homes. In its 14th year, the event raises public awareness about child abuse, the plight of children in foster care in Dallas County and ways you can help. During the two-week Parade of Playhouses event, visitors to NorthPark purchase raffle tickets for chances to win one of many extraordinary custom-built playhouses. The playhouse drawing is held during the event’s closing ceremony currently scheduled for August 22nd. The process for the competition was done in in two phases: the first involved having two separate groups of judges (9 individuals in total) at different locations meet to review all the submissions. Their charge was to evaluate and assign a point total to each entry based on the entry criteria identified in the submission requirements. The AIA Dallas Chapter then independently tallied the results and 18 individuals were notified that they had been advanced to the jury round, which took place last Friday, May 8th. The judges who took part on that panel included:
Judi Napier – ORIX
Beverly Levy – Director, Dallas CASA
Carolyn Newham – Director of Development and Finance, CASA
Sara Rockey – Events Coordinator, CASA
Richard Cavnar – Vice President – Estimating, Spring Valley Construction
Michael Malone – WKMC Architects
Bob Bullis – Architect, VP of Programs AIA Dallas Chapter
Bob Borson – Bernbaum Magadini Architects
All 18 entries were printed up on 24″ x 36″ tall boards and spread throughout a large room at the Dallas Center for Architecture. Each judge was given a unique color of stickers and went around individually and placed a sticker on the entries that they felt best represented the requirements and goals identified in the competition brief. We did not place a limit on the number of entries each judge could tag – they could say they liked every single one if they chose. After evaluating the results from the individual judging phase, it was decided that the cutoff to move onto the group discussion round was 4 stickers; which advanced 8 of the 18. Only one entry received a sticker from every judge so it was immediately advanced to be one of the four playhouses identified for construction. Of the remaining 7 entries, the average number of votes was 6, which was great because it was an indication of how consistent the entries were and how favorably each was received. The final judging round took around 3 hours and proved to be pretty difficult. In the end, the entries that would get constructed are:
Kristin Gisselmann, Jeff Berryman, Dan Fletcher, Matt Dyer, Ellis Heitzke-Kirdorfer, Sara Biederman, Chris Duffel, Jenna Fitzgerald & Randy Barnett
Chris Owens
Name withheld pending guardian approval
Carmen Delgado & Lorena Holguin
Spring Valley Construction is the construction company that is sponsoring the construction of the winning playhouses came on-board very early in this process and made this competition possible. I am extremely grateful to Tim Guedry, Vice President-Project Management at Spring Valley for so enthusiastically being a part of this process For more information on the opportunities for young architects, architectural interns and students interested in architecture, please visit the AIA Dallas Chapter YAF blog. I am including the other entries that made it to the jury here so that you can see how much fun this competition turned out to be. Out of all the entries submitted, 57% came from students currently enrolled in high school or college, 31% came from architectural interns (those working towards their architectural license) and 12% were young architects. We were really happy with the diversity of entrants for this event and we were very happy to see the overall quality of the playhouses submitted or consideration. Hopefully, everyone will consider entering this competition again next year.
Kristin Gisselmann, Jeff Berryman, Dan Fletcher, Matt Dyer, Ellis Heitzke-Kirdorfer, Sara Biederman, Chris Duffel, Jenna Fitzgerald & Randy Barnett
Kristin Gisselmann, Jeff Berryman, Dan Fletcher, Matt Dyer, Ellis Heitzke-Kirdorfer, Sara Biederman, Chris Duffel, Jenna Fitzgerald & Randy Barnett
Name withheld pending guardian approval
Whitney Ford
Name withheld pending guardian approval
ARCHITEXAS
Name withheld pending guardian approval
Scott Taylor
Name withheld pending guardian approval
Joseph Lara
Andrew Herrell
Name withheld pending guardian approval
Name withheld pending guardian approval
Minho Kim
.
If you are interested in learning more about 2010 ORIX Parade of Playhouses at NorthPark Center benefiting Dallas CASA, please feel free to contact the event coordinator Sara Rockey at srockey@dallascasa.org
If you are interested in seeing my playhouse design for ORIX, you can find it here
L Stack House by Marlon Blackwell
Surprise! – I wasn’t planning on being in Arkansas but here I am. I have some unexpected business to take care of but luckily for me, I have a sister who lives in Fayetteville I so I get to spend time with her and her family (4 kids!). My business will only tie me up for the afternoon on Tuesday so I will be spending time looking around and exploring some of the local architecture (I hope they have an old brew house…).
Another exciting benefit to this trip is I will get to spend some time with award winning architect Marlon Blackwell on Wednesday. I originally met Marlon for the first time some 9 or 10 years ago when he came through Dallas and visited with a college friend of his – and my employer at time – Michael Malone. Marlon spent the day with us and we drove him around and showed him some of the projects we were currently working on. I gave Michael a call this last Sunday to see if he would do me the huge courtesy of calling Marlon to see if he had time for me to visit. I remember Marlon being generous and easy-going and Michael assures me that he is still the same - I am really looking forward to the visit. I will post photos and any interesting bits from conversations later in the week.
If you are not familiar with Marlon Blackwell’s work, you should take some time and get familiar. You can view several of his award winning projects directly from his website here. He is also widely published and has a monograph out on his work: ‘An Architecture of the Ozarks: The work of Marlon Blackwell‘. A quote from to opening passage from the book:
“I live, practice, teach, and build in northwest Arkansas, in the foothills of the Ozark Mountains. It’s a place considered to be in the middle of nowhere, yet ironically close to everywhere. It is an environment of real natural beauty and, simultaneously, one of real constructed ugliness. Abandonment, exploitation, erasure and nostalgia are all aspects of this place and are conditions as authentic as its natural beauty and local form. This land of disparate conditions in not just a setting for my work — it is part of the work. By choosing to live and work here — to call it home — I’ve been able to get beyond the surface of things, to turn over the rock and discover the complex and rich underbelly of my place — its visceral presences and expressive character — that so informs and sustains my efforts. I am working from the conviction that architecture is larger than the subject of architecture.” – Marlon Blackwell
My good friend Michael is no slouch either and has recently written a book based on his lecture, “So you wanna do houses?” – one of the AIA conventions most popular. The book “The Architect’s Guide to Residential Design“ is published by McGraw Hll and while originally geared towards architects looking to break into the residential market, this is a hands-on working manual that is proving to be a valuable resource to architects and owners alike who are looking to gain a better understanding of the intricacies of various methodologies involved in the process of creating a residence. There are several real-world case studies used in the book to illustrate typical residential design issues. This is a fantastic book and should be on the desk of every architect who practices in the residential market.
So, this should be an exciting week as I will also get to practice with my new digital camera (Nikon D90). Hopefully my learning curve will be swift and I will be able to get some great photos from my trip and of Marlon’s work.
