Dallas Heroes

Learn more about our Informing work.

Dallas Heroes was initiated by bcWORKSHOP in recognition of Dr. Martin Luther King’s incredible legacy of service. Dr. King challenged us to build a more perfect union and taught us that everyone has a role to play. With the Dallas Heroes project, on January 20th we honored some of those who serve or have served locally by distributing "Dallas Heroes" trading cards across the city of Dallas. Our hope is that this advocacy will encourage you to honor your heroes and to engage the causes that you care about.

How were the 25 heroes chosen? For the First Edition we nominated our own local heroes, the people that have inspired us by striving to bring greater economic, social, and environmental justice to Dallas. They come from a wide range of causes, including civil rights, environmental justice, and the arts. There are many more heroes to honor - now we welcome your submissions for the Second Edition.

Why trading cards? They’re tangible, portable, collectible, and fun. We were inspired by vintage sports cards, and we believe our heroes can be celebrated in this form as well.

Where can I get a pack? This is a limited edition of 1,000 packs, distributed across the city. You can find locations posted on Twitter and Instagram (#dallasheroes). The cards will not be reprinted!

What can I do? Submit and share your Dallas heroes, either through the website www.dallasheroes.org, or through Twitter or Instagram  (#dallasheroes). On the website you can also connect to the causes or organizations associated with some of the 25 heroes in this pack. We encourage you to find other local opportunities for volunteerism, advocacy, or donations.

When will the Second Edition come out? That all depends on you and the submissions we receive. Submit your heroes through www.dallasheroes.org for a chance to win a t-shirt featuring your Dallas Hero!

More questions? Give us a call at 214-252-2900, e-mail us at inform@bcworkshop.org or drop by our office at 416 S. Ervay Street!

 

Read more about the Dallas Heroes project in the local Dallas media:

Dallas Morning News

D Magazine

2013 in Review

Check out what's been going on this year!

POP Neighborhood Stories: Mount Auburn in August of 2013
POP Neighborhood Stories: Mount Auburn in August of 2013
Rick Lowe is the inaugural SHOPFRONT speaker in March 2013
Rick Lowe is the inaugural SHOPFRONT speaker in March 2013
La Hacienda is nearing completion in November of 2013
La Hacienda is nearing completion in November of 2013

2013 marks bcWORKSHOP's 5th year as a non-profit! We would like to share our accomplishments from this milestone year, in which we received national and international recognition of our work and opened an office in Houston.

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2013 OVERVIEW 34 Active Projects and Initiatives - Centered on improving livability and viability, project types range widely and include single family homes, multi-unit developments, university campus planning, and community/artist collaborations.

144,678 Square Footage Designed - The unique social, economic and environmental conditions of place guide the design process and products in Dallas, Houston, and the Lower Rio Grande Valley communities.

10,137 Voices Heard - By listening to and amplifying voices, our outreach efforts change perceptions of place and build stronger communities through understanding common challenges and celebrating shared histories.

102 Stories Documented - Documenting and exhibiting stories highlights the unique culture and development of neighborhoods, and creates a platform for active dialogue about the history and future of our communities.

148 Community Engagement Meetings and Events - Engaging stakeholders is at the core of a thoughtful design practice and ensures that design solutions reflect community values, identify and respond to core issues, and are held to high professional standards.

Work Across Texas - bcWORKSHOP's projects span seven counties: Dallas, Tarrant, Harris, Cameron, Starr, Hidalgo, and Willacy. Over the last two years, we have expanded our office to include Dallas, Brownsville and Houston, applying our community based practice to address both needs that are unique to each locality as well as their shared needs.

Awards & Recognition

bcWORKSHOP has been fortunate in 2013 to receive recognition on local, national and international scales for both architecture and planning work. Awards include:

Our office's work was also exhibited at AIA Dallas Small Firm Roundtable's "Under the Radar" exhibit at the Dallas Center for Architecture and the Texas Society of Architects State Convention in Fort Worth.

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Revenue & Expenses - We greatly appreciate the time and support of our funders, partners, participants, and advocates. We look forward to continuing our work in 2014. Your support is what makes our work possible.

Supporters & Partners - Thank you very much for your support in 2013! Join us, and get involved in 2014 by volunteering, donating, joining our email list, or attending future community meetings and events.

Corporations - Bank of America CITI

Government - National Endowment for the Arts

Foundations - Communities Foundation of Texas Dorothea L. Leonhardt Foundation Ford Foundation Leland Fikes Foundation Rudy Bruner Foundation The Dallas Foundation The Horizon Foundation Trinity Trust Foundation

Non-Profits - Advocates for Community Transformation AIGA - Dallas Fort Worth The Real Estate Council

In Kind - Larry Ferguson, R.P.L.S. Mark Smallridge SWA Group

Individuals - Rik Adamski Robyn Anderson Donald A Baty Maria Bergh LeAnn Binford Lawrence Bogan Cathy Boldt Anne & Brent Brown Sue & Frank Brown Laurne Cadieux Michael Carriveau Brandon Castillo Mr. & Mrs. Charles Cheatham Eva Cherry Patricia Clements Sara Cohen Heather Commons John Curran Reece Dike George Ellis Andrea Farris Sara Beth Frye Donald Gatzke James Gibbs Hunter & Stephanie Hunt Ben Jones Maria & Victor Jones Zach Kauffman Tierney Kaufman James Lawrence Kristi Macadaeg Abby Medin Ron Medin Jesse Muniz Dhriti Pandya Wanda Pate Shea & Cleo Patricek Maribeth Peters A Reece Deedie & Rusty Rose Evan Stone Amanda Streitmatter Kyle Talkington Barbara Teeter Ann Weflen Roger Whaley

Partners - A Resource in Serving Equality Advocates for Community Transformation Affordable Homes of South Texas AIGA DFW Iv Amenti Austin CDC AVANCE Ann Bagley Melody Bell Big Thought Yesenia Blandon Christopher Blay Brixmor Property Group Brownsville Community Improvement Corporation Caruth Foundation CDC Brownsville CDC Harlingen Morgan Chivers City of Dallas City of Dallas CityDesign Studio City of Denton, Neighborhood Planning Program CitySquare Rob Colburn Phillip Collins Communities Foundation of Texas Maurice Cox Patricia Cox Tisha Crear Catherine Cuellar D Academy Dallas County Criminal Justice System Dallas Engaged Professionals Dallas Homeowners League Dallas Independent School District Dallas Parks and Recreation Dallas Public Library Bang Dang Deep Dallas Music Dolphin Heights Neighborhood Association Dorothea Leonhardt Foundation Downtown Dallas, Inc Wanda Dye East Dallas Community School Elizabeth Chapel CME Church Eloise Lundy Recreation Center Equal Voice Network Fraizer Revitalization Inc Friends of the Sant Fe Trail Fruteria Cano Don Gatzke Gensler Golden SEEDS/Golden Gate Missionary Baptist Church Tammy Gomez Greater El Bethel Missionary Baptist Church Groundworks Dallas Gulf Coast Community Design Studio Healing Hands Ministeries Henderson Neighborhood Association Anna Hill Hocker Design Group Erika Huddleston Paula Hutchinson Tipton Housewright Jewish Family Services Linda Jones Kadleck & Associates Keist Park Neighborhood Association La Union del Pueblo Entero Lakewood Trails LIFT Rick Lowe Christa McCall Sara Mendez & Isaac Cortez MEP Systems Design & Engineering Inc. Metro Dallas Homeless Alliance Metrocare Services Akin Babatunde & Liz Mickel Mill City Community Association Shaun Montgomery Cythia Mulcahy John Mullen National Endowment for the Arts New Hope Empowerment Center Old Oak Cliff Conservation League Parkview Church of God David Perkes Plastiki Marcello Pope (Rosie Lee) David Preziosi Proyecto Azteca Proyecto Juan Diego Public Architecture RabbleWorkshop Radha Kalachandji Hare Krishna Temple Samuell Grand Recreation Center Danny Samuels San Felipe de Jesus Lou Nell Sims Alphonso Smith SMU: Hunt Institute for Engineering & Humanity SMU: Innovation Lab South Texas Adult Resource and Training John Spriggins Supermercado Azteca SWA Group TEDxSMU Tenth Street Crimewatch Texas A&M - Commerce Texas A&M University College of Architecture Texas Organizing Project Texas RioGrande Legal Aid Texas Tech College of Architecture The Parks at Wynnewood The ROi Project The Senior Source TMBP|click Two-Wins Foundation TX Low Income Housing Information Service U3 Ventures unAbridged Architecture University of Houston Community Design Resource Center UT Southwestern Medical Center Benny Walker Patricia Williams/American Care Academy Woodrow Wilson Alumni Association Woodrow Wilson High School Wynnewood Community Services Center Wynnewood North Neighborhood Association Xplore YouthBUILD YWCA

Knox Park

Check out more from our Shopfront Series.

Join Kate Medin on Tuesday, December 17th as she shares her recent research on the Knox Park neighborhood. Knox Park is a pie-piece shaped neighborhood tucked between Central Expressway and the Katy Trail. Flanked originally by two railroads, it remains a unique entity in the city due to its infrastructural isolation. Through the influence of its neighbors, it has converted from one of Dallas' first northern suburbs to a retail and multifamily residential hub. This discussion will focus on how infrastructure not only shapes the physical environment, but also the culture of a place.

Bexar Street Corridor

Check out more from out Shopfront Series.

It's time to celebrate! 2013 marks exactly 100 years of development within the Bexar Street Corridor. Originally platted in 1913, Lincoln Manor, Lincoln Manor No. 2, Elite, Ervay Cedars, and Camps Peachland were the first housing developments to appear in neighborhoods contemporarily known as Ideal and Rochester Park/Bonton, both which sit within the Bexar Street Corridor in the southernmost portion of South Dallas. This research investigated the historic vicissitudes associated with those developments by virtue of markets and policy response. By examining the last 100 years of development history within the Bexar Street Corridor, this presentation aims to inform contemporary development practices and policy by understanding what was effective, what was not, why, and what that meant for the community.

Dallas' Streetcars

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Can public, transit-oriented infrastructure be both market-driven and sustainable? Join TJ Bogan Tuesday, November 19th, as he shares how the history of streetcars in the city of Dallas (1872 - 1956) tells us a rich story of civic development and urban expansion driven by private investment for private gain. Before automobiles and publicly funded transportation networks, street rail was the key to urban growth. Benefiting from an era of weak government, foresighted individuals were able to buy up previously exurban land and make it accessible from the urban core, reaping a profit on the increased property value. What was good for them was good for the city.

In the first half of the twentieth century, government regulation increased, and the new accountability proved an insurmountable burden. New modes of transportation were introduced, and automobiles took precedence on the city's streets.

In Dallas, the streetcar rose and fell as a privately funded public amenity. Through analysis of our past, we are now in a position to critique our current subsidized transit infrastructure.

Turtle Creek Corridor

Read more about our Shopfront Series.

Isaac Cohen shares his explorations of the Turtle Creek Corridor and how the layering of use, management, and development has created an urban landscape that provides highly variable and often unexpected experiences. Turtle Creek is often seen as a natural object within the urban fabric; as a visual backdrop to the activities of the city. In reality, Turtle Creek is a dynamic and highly manipulated urban waterway that supports a wide variety of recreational, economic, and ecological activity that reveals to us varied ways groups value and use a shared public space.

Join us in exploring the historic and contemporary use and development of Turtle Creek from the scale of the watershed to the development of George Kessler’s plan for the Turtle Creek Parkway.

Design Sketches

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July 25, 2013: Design Sketches

Reception begins at 5:00 PM, with talks at 5:30. Please RSVP.

Speakers will offer short talks about their work, how it intersects with design, and what they believe is essential to make Dallas a healthier, more vibrant, livable city for all. Confirmed speakers: Ann Bagley, Rob Colburn, Bang Dang, Wanda Dye, Omar Hakeem, Anna Hill, Tipton Housewright, Christa McCall, Cynthia Mulcahy, and David Preziosi.

Presentation themes: What is the true value of preservation in revitalizing communities? How can public art serve as a mirror and amplifier of community identity? When are physical design solutions needed to meet social needs? How can grassroots organizing booster the work of local governments?

Dallas City Grid(s)

Learn more about our Shopfront series.

by Aaron Benjamin

Every new bcFELLOW arriving at buildingcommunityWORKSHOP receives a small research assignment. It serves partially as an introduction to bcWORKSHOP, and partially as an introduction to the city of Dallas. Most FELLOWs study the development of a single neighborhood, often one with some other link to the work of our office. But instead of studying one neighborhood, my assignment was to study the entire Dallas street grid. Not really a small research assignment. Did I mention I had never even been to Dallas before joining bcWORKSHOP?

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Whenever I told anyone I was studying the Dallas street grid I always received the exact same two-word response. “What grid?”, he would reply, half joking, half serious. And it’s true. Dallas does not have the nice clean street layout like Manhattan, or even Washington D.C. (which makes a lot more sense from the air then when you actually have to navigate through it). Heck, even Los Angeles, where I had been living, had nice numbered streets and something resembling order. In Dallas, I have taken the wrong street many times. Or a street has taken a bend and gone a completely different direction than the one I was intending to travel. And I still have not figured out how that Exposition Avenue intersection works, even after this project.

However, it was my job to make sense of this mess. And the truth is, if you break it down and look at the individual pieces, it is really not all that complicated. Every street was laid out by some (reasonably) rational individual, even if that reason is no longer obvious. With a few exceptions, most streets follow one of three grids, each older than the city itself:

  • A grid at 45 degrees to the cardinal directions, laid out by a man named Warren Ferris for settler John Grigsby. This covers areas like Old East Dallas, Oak Lawn and South Dallas.
  • A grid aligned to the cardinal directions laid out under businessman W.J. Peters for the Peter’s Colony venture, which covers a portion of North Texas about the size of the state of Maryland. This is all the large square sections as you move away from the center of Dallas to the north and into Oak Cliff.
  • The grid laid out by John Neely Bryan aligned with the Trinity River. That is the streets like Commerce, Main and Elm, that spread northeast through downtown into Deep Ellum.

Throw in about a dozen railroads, competing real estate interests (a surprising number of which were settled in the Supreme Court of Texas), the Trinity River, and a gaggle of freeways, you end up with the street layout Dallas has today.

The streets of Dallas account for a huge portion of our city, both in terms of the physical land and the way we experience our city. So instead of resigning ourselves to jokingly asking “What grid?”, let’s see if we can gain something by actually discovering what is going on.

Public Design in the Crescent City

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June 20, 2013: Public Design in the Crescent City

Maurice Cox is an urban designer, architectural educator and civic leader. Cox serves as the Associate Dean for Community Engagement at Tulane University, School of Architecture and Director of the Tulane City Center where he oversees a wide range of initiatives with Tulane architecture faculty and students throughout the New Orleans community. He joined the faculty of Tulane from the University of Virginia where he was an Associate Professor of Architecture, and served as mayor of the city of Charlottesville, Virginia from 2002-2004. Cox also served as Design Director of the National Endowment for the Arts from 2007-2010. In that capacity, he led the NEA’s Your Town Rural Institute, the Governor’s Institute on Community Design, the Mayors’ Institute on City Design, and oversaw direct design grants to the design community across the United States.

Over his 17-year career at the UVA, Cox merged architecture, politics and design education to define a new role for the designer—that of civic leader. Nationally respected for his ability to incorporate active citizen participation into the design process while achieving the highest quality of design excellence, Fast Company business magazine named him one of America’s "20 Masters of Design" in recognition of his practice of "democratic design." A founding partner of RBGC Architecture, Research and Urbanism from 1996-2006 the firm was acclaimed for its partnerships with communities traditionally underserved by architecture. Their design for a New Rural Village in Bayview, Virginia received numerous national design awards as well as being featured on CBS’s "60 Minutes" and in the documentary film "This Black Soil". A recipient of the 2009 Edmund Bacon Prize, the Harvard University Graduate School of Design 2004-05 Loeb Fellowship and the 2006 John Hejduk Award for Architecture, Cox received his architectural education from the Cooper Union School of Architecture.

At Tulane, in addition to directing the Tulane City Center, Cox works with the highly successful programs of URBANbuild, the Tulane Regional Urban Design Center, the preservation program and the school’s new Master of Sustainable Real Estate Development program, all which are community outreach design initiatives of the university.

CDCB Construction Standards

Learn more about our work in the RGV.

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bcWORKSHOP is developing residential construction standards for the Community Development Corporation of Brownsville (CDCB) in partnership with CDCB’s team of advisors. Residential construction standards are a customized set of best practices intended to regulate and elevate construction quality, improving the overall quality of life for their clients.  Construction standards will ensure that CDCB residential projects are planned, designed, and constructed to promote sustainable development and best practices for the Lower Rio Grande Valley.  These standards will create continuity and equity between products and will standardize process, policies, and procedures.

In order to achieve the above goals, construction standards will incorporate recommendations from local and national performance standards that address healthy, affordable, constructible, low-tech, sustainable building practices appropriate for South Texas and CDCB.  Currently, all projects built under these guidelines will qualify for:

  • ENERGY STAR 3.0
  • Indoor airPLUS of the Environmental Protection Agency
  • LRGV Low Impact Development
  • RGV Green Built

Construction standards will be complete and ready for implementation by the end of summer 2013.

Academic Influences Panel

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June 7, 2013: Opening Reception and Panel

On Friday, June 7th, bcWORKSHOP hosted a panel on the relationship between academic institutions, professional design practices, and the national public design movement. The panel was moderated by bcWORKSHOP's Associate Director Benje Feehan, and included Yasenia Blandon, the co-founder of Latinos in Architecture and Associate at Perkins + Will, Danny Samuels of the Rice Building Workshop, and Don Gatzke, Dean of the School of Architecture at the University of Texas at Arlington.

POP Measures & Tools

Learn more about POP Dallas.

The last POP Toolkit post, in March, mentioned we were looking for a neighborhood to partner with us to Pilot the Toolkit. We found that partner in the Mill City neighborhood, but what has happened in the meantime? Making that announcement revealed to us how much more work still needed to be done -- refining our product and engagement, yes, but also our project definitions.

We had figured out what the Toolkit was and how it worked, but not how to explain it. Our (self-described) “fun and engaging process” was clumsy and awkward to explain or facilitate. We had to go back to the drawing board, where we had long ago stated that the POP Toolkit would structure, visualize, and organize grassroots planning. These principles neatly organize the pieces and parts that make up the Toolkit Process.

The Toolkit structures change by challenging stakeholders to declare a scale of intervention, whether it be the house, the street, the neighborhood or the city. This identifies expectations, a potential audience, and stakeholders.

Livability Measures and Engagement Tools

The Toolkit visualizes change by establishing baseline conditions, contributing factors, and possible solutions to neighborhood concerns. These neighborhood concerns helped us filter global livability research into eight Measures of Livability. The Measures are Density, Form, Use vs. Entitlement, Ownership, Healthy Living Environment, Connectivity, Safety and Cohesion.

Finally, the Toolkit organizes change through twelve Engagement Tools: strategies to convert everyday activities into activism. These are split into three Methods which provide a flexible guide to planning Workshops. The Walk, Meter, List or Web lend themselves to discovering Connections. The Messenger, Gallery, Performance or Meeting are good strategies to share those discoveries. The Act, Garden, Dinner and Plan make a difference. All of the Tools should be used with reflection to deepen the impact and understanding of each step.

The POP Toolkit is, at it's simplest, a way to deploy design thinking as a community organizing Tool. It reflects the process we at bcWORKSHOP use in all our design and making, and puts those skills in neighbor's hands to expand the impact we can make together.

Public Design by Texas Students

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Texas Design Schools: Exhibiting Public Interest Projects

bcSHOPFRONT is pleased to announce its summer 2013 series of programming anchored by the exhibit, Texas Design Schools: Exhibiting Public Interest Projects. The exhibit will be open June 7th- July 25th and highlight projects by Texas university architecture and design students. Chosen works, selected by a jury of nationally recognized public design practitioners, showcase the current impact of the public design movement on regional architecture education practices. A diverse range of programs including panels, talks, and casual design socials are free and open to the public.

Dallas Public Agenda

Learn more about POP Dallas.

As part of our POP [People Organizing Place] initiative, bcWORKSHOP announces the launch of The Public Agenda, a digital tool that maps the voting agenda of the Dallas City Council by neighborhoods.

Under a council-manager form of government, the City Council is responsible for the legislative function of the city, including establishing policy, passing local ordinances, voting appropriations, and developing an overall vision. In Dallas, the Council convenes on the second and fourth Wednesday of each month to consider action on the voting agenda.

The Public Agenda uses the POP City Map as a framework for understanding the geography of the decisions that come before the Council. By reformatting the published Council agenda, bcWORKSHOP hopes to enhance opportunities for citizen engagement. Healthy and vibrant neighborhoods are the foundation of a successful city, and every citizen should be empowered as a neighborhood and city advocate.

In announcing the launch of an Open Data Portal this fall, the City of Dallas has issued a Press Release that includes The Public Agenda as an example of products that can be created with open access to data.

David Perkes at Shopfront

Learn more about bcSHOPFRONT.

Public Interest Practices in Architecture

David Perkes is part of a four person national team with Bryan Bell, Roberta Feldman, and Sergio Palleroni to receive the 2011 Latrobe Prize from the American Institute of Architects, a biennial prize dedicated to broadening the perspective and scope of architecture to include cross-disciplinary fields and expertise. Their project is entitled, "Public Interest Practices in Architecture" and seeks to address three questions.

  • What are the needs that can be addressed by public interest practices?
  • How are current public interest practices operating?
  • What is necessary for public interest work to become a significant segment of architecture practice?

The Latrobe Prize is awarded by the American Institute of Architects College of Fellows. Founded in 1952, this organization is composed of members of the Institute who are elected to Fellowship by a jury of their peers. The College of Fellows seeks to stimulate a sharing of interests among Fellows, promote the purposes of the Institute, advance the profession of architecture, mentor young architects, and be of ever-increasing service to society. Toward that end, the College seeks to encourage research that broadens the perspective and scope of architecture to include cross-disciplinary fields and expertise through its biennial competition: the Latrobe Prize.

David Perkes is a licensed architect and professor for Mississippi State University.  He is the founding director of the Gulf Coast Community Design Studio, a professional outreach program of the College of Architecture, Art + Design, Mississippi State University. The design studio was established in Biloxi, Mississippi following Hurricane Katrina and is providing planning, landscape and architectural design support to many Gulf Coast communities and non-profit organizations.  The design studio has assisted in the renovation of hundreds of damaged homes and over two hundred new house projects in Biloxi and other communities.  The Biloxi house projects were awarded an Honor Citation from the Gulf States Region AIA in 2007, a Terner Award for Innovative Housing and a Mississippi AIA Honor Citation in 2009.  The Bayou Auguste restoration project received a Mississippi AIA Honor Citation in 2012.  In 2011 David was selected by the White House as a “Champion of Change” for his work on the Gulf Coast.

Before creating the Gulf Coast Community Design Studio, David was the director of the Jackson Community Design Center and taught in the School of Architecture’s fifth year program in Jackson, Mississippi.  Under his leadership the Jackson Community Design Center assisted many community organizations and received numerous national and local awards, including a Mississippi AIA Honor Award for the Boys and Girls Club Camp Pavilion.  David has a Master of Environmental Design degree from Yale School of Architecture, a Master of Architecture degree from the University of Utah, and a Bachelor of Science degree in Civil and Environmental Engineering from Utah State University.  In 2004 David was awarded a Loeb Fellowship from the Harvard Graduate School of Design.

Transforming Communities Through Art

Read more about our Shopfront series.

On March 19, 2013, bcSHOPFRONT hosted Rick Lowe of Project Row Houses. Rick Lowe is an artist who works and resides in Houston, Texas. His formal training is in the visual arts; over the past twenty years he has worked both inside and outside of art world institutions by participating in exhibitions and developing community-based art projects. Rick's work has been exhibited internationally including the Phoenix Art Museum; Museum of Contemporary Arts, Los Angeles; Neuberger Museum, Purchase, New York, Kwangji Biennale, Kwangji, Korea; and the Venice Architecture Biennale. His community building projects include Watts House Project, Los Angeles, CA; and a project for the Seattle Art Museum in their new Olympic Sculpture Park with David Adjaye. Rick has been honored with the Rudy Bruner Award in Urban Excellence Silver Medalist; the AIA Keystone Award; Loeb Fellow at Harvard University; Skandalaris Award for Excellence in Art Architecture; USA Booth Fellowship; and the Creative Time Annenberg Prize for Art and Social Change.

In commemoration of the Nasher Sculpture Center's 10th anniversary, Rick Lowe will participate in Nasher XChange, a dynamic art exhibition consisting of 10 newly - commissioned public sculptures by contemporary artists at sites throughout the city of Dallas from October 19, 2013 to February 16, 2014. Covering a diverse range of sites and approaches to sculpture, Nasher XChange represents the first citywide, museum-organized public art exhibition in the United States.

Project Row House (PRH) is a non-profit arts organization in Northern Third Ward, one of Houston’s oldest African-American communities. Lowe's belief that artwork can serve as a tool to both voice social issues and also create resolutions was the foundation of this project . This idea engaged the community, encouraging local residents to see value and opportunity in their neighborhood as the Project reinvented damaged, abandoned row houses in an isolated Houston neighborhood. Since inception, the PRH location has expanded from 22 properties to 40 over 6 blocks. The reinvented properties house artist residency programs, housing for young mothers in need, additional residences for low-income families, affordable office spaces, a community arts gallery, park, and other community centers. As PRH has grown, the impact on the community has multiplied- the neighborhood is more connected to the larger surrounding area, members of the neighborhood have organized to implement and establish their ideas, and a community development corporation was spawned, producing nine low income housing units to date.

Announcing bcSHOPFRONT

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Public design is an international movement which emphasizes community planning and creates positive changes through the built environment. bcWORKSHOP employs design to deliver and advocate for more livable communities. Local experiences and interests direct our work. We form strong relationships through place based product development, and work daily ensuring design is accessible and in service to all communities no matter their economic resources.

bcSHOPFRONT is an initiative of bcWORKSHOP featuring exhibits, talks, and activities related to the national public design movement and its impact on Dallas. It examines work of all scales- local, regional, state, and national- which promotes public design as a commonplace process. To position Dallas within the larger movement, the inaugural Spring 2013 series relates WORKSHOP’s local work to influential national institutions and practitioners.

sustainABLEhouse - 2006 Symposium

The following is taken from the 2006 sustainABLEhouse program.  The event, presented by the bcWORKSHOP in partnership with the Dallas Architecture Forum was one of the first activities we did. Enjoy this look back.

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In 1996, the Carnegie Foundation in their report, Building Community, asked the question:

“Will U.S. cities be centers of civilization or decay, and will American children inherit a wholesome physical environment that promotes heath and prosperity?”

Buildings provide a framework for daily life and reflect values of cities in which people live. In 2005, only 2% of homebuyers worked with an architect and if Dallasites are going to meet the demands of growing urban areas and provide quality affordable housing, then architects, planners, builders, and residents must engage a new way of architectural practice.

Over the next twenty-five years, North Texas will grow by more than 4 million people, and according to The City of Dallas Mayor’s Task Force on Affordable Housing, there is a current need for over 30,000 new homes. The way in which Dallas builds to meet this demand must be reevaluated to provide all individuals with healthy, sustainable living communities.

The first in a series of conversations, sustainABLEhouse will engage individuals in relevant discussion about building affordable housing for the citizens of Dallas. The assembled group of architects, builders, planners, developers, city officials, and activists will examine national best practices and local opportunities for achieving social and economic benefits through community design practices. Panelists and topics for this symposium include:

National Best Practices, with Michael Pyatok, FAIA, affordable housing architect based in Oakland, California and principal of Pyatok Architects, Alexander Garvin, urban planner, developer, and consultant of the national firm Alex Garvin & Associates, Rick Lowe, artist, activist, and founder of Project Row Houses in Houston, Texas, and moderated by Donald Gatzke, Dean of the School of Architecture at University of Texas at Arlington.

Community Design, with Scott Ball, architect and President of the Association for Community Design Brent A. Brown, Dallas architect and founder of bcWORKSHOP.

Local Opportunities, with Hank Lawson, executive director of SouthFair Community Development Corporation, John Greenan, executive director of Central Dallas Community Development Corporation, and moderated by W. Mark Gunderson, Fort Worth architect, educator, and critic.

ACD 2012 Reflections

The Association for Community Design held their annual conference from June 8 to 12 in Salt Lake City. Maggie Winter and myself attended the entire conference while Brent flew in on Friday to speak on a panel. The conference was a small gathering of leaders in the field of Public Interest Design from around the country.

photo courtesy of Association for Community Design

photo courtesy of Association for Community Design

The term Public Interest Design is a relatively new one. This was acknowledged in the first panel on Friday by David Perkes of the Gulf Coast Community Design Studio. The conference followed his exploration into the realities of this field. Perkes advised that we can talk all we like, but what are our actions saying? He placed an emphasis on discovering the real impact and implications of the work being done. However, using those impacts to seek acceptance and recognition of value from the mainstream profession seems to be the preoccupation of the moment. Awards, fellowships, and prizes are seeking to add to and establish that credibility.  There also seems to be a shift toward public interest designers feeling an obligation to improve their ability to be a resource for each other and non-profits with similar intentions, as well as providing resources to the public.

A panel with Anne-Marie Lubenau (of the Rudy Bruner Award for Urban Excellence) and Dan Pitera (of Detroit Collaborative Design Center) summed up the topics of conversation throughout the conference with the questions they asked of the Rudy Bruner Award:

WHAT: What would we like to learn from each other?

HOW: How effective are the means of providing that information?

WHO: Who should know about it?

Public Interest Design is growing. It is seeking to become an example of practice beyond its current influence. Of course we want to make our type of practice a shining beacon of social justice for the architecture profession. These questions garnered a lot of debate as well as consensus, but I still feel as though people were holding back. Or, maybe we are still not asking the right questions.

Resources: