Posts under ‘Architecture & Urban Design’

More good news for supporters of the TRV (like yours truly): the Army Corps of Engineers has given the project the go-ahead, and they can now start construction. Max Baker in the S-T has the story:
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers officially opened the funding floodgates for Trinity Uptown on Friday by signing [...]

Here’s something of a question/poll for the readers out there.
If you’re looking for an affordable urban residence in a central Fort Worth neighborhood (and by “affordable” I’m talking around $150k or below), what sort of thing would you be looking for? This is assuming that whatever you wanted within that price target could materialize [...]

UPDATE 2: Reader jefffwd writes that the domain name “thecassidy.com” was registered on August 1st by the Enilon Group, a local web design and marketing company. One of Enilon’s clients is none other than Sundance Square Management.
The plot thickens. More info as it becomes available.
UPDATE: There is some word that the [...]

I’m hearing that crews have installed a logo for the Cassidy, the long-rumored 22-story condo tower planned for the southeast corner of the intersection of 3rd & Throckmorton downtown. Could we be at long last nearing the start of the project?
Not much is known about the Cassidy, except that it’s a Bass family project, [...]

Fort Worthology reader Mark Rybczyk sends in this photo of the new Sovereign Bank being built on 7th Street as part of the West 7th development by Cypress Equities. The new Sovereign Bank has been designed by local firm Schwarz-Hanson (no relation to David M. Schwarz of Bass Hall/etc. fame), who also designed two [...]

I attended the Fort Worth South, Inc. presentation yesterday evening on the proposed re-striping of Magnolia Avenue to feature fewer traffic lanes and create dedicated bike lanes. As I expected, there were both supporters and opponents in attendance. What I was pleasantly surprised at was the very strong showing of supporters at the [...]

Just a reminder: tomorrow evening at 5:30 PM in the Community Room at the Center for Cancer and Blood Disorders on Magnolia is a meeting being presented by Fort Worth South, Inc. on the “Complete Streets” proposal for Magnolia Avenue. The proposal would see Magnolia re-striped as shown in the crude drawing I [...]

I’ve taken you through the Pecan Place townhomes before, but with construction wrapping on a new phase of the project, I decided to take another look. This new phase is notably different from the previous parts of the development, both inside and out.

Working on my HDR again, and got these three from the Kimbell.
On a side note, posting has been irregular here the last few days and will likely be so again for a while. There’s a project I’m starting that will likely consume a lot of my after-work and weekend time for a month or [...]

Fort Worth Forum member (and Fort Worthology reader) Dustin posted the following paragraph over at the Fort Worth Forum, and it eloquently summarizes the benefits of the Trinity River Vision better than I think I’ve ever been able to do myself. Here’s the quote:
The thing about the TRV is that most people in the [...]

I know, I know. Why am I showing you photos of vacant lots? Well, these two vacant lots are the next phases of Trinity Bluff that are now getting underway. The photo above shows the bluffside location where Lincoln Property Company is building a series of townhome-style apartments. This 2.4 acre [...]

The Overhead Wire has a nicely thought-provoking piece over something that’s bugged me for a long time - why building rail transit is a “waste” and a “gift to developers,” while building roads that enable more sprawl gets a pass. From The Overhead Wire:
I often wonder why there is a double standard. Many critics [...]

Over the weekend, I took my photographic equipment to the Near Southside and spent some time wandering around taking HDR photos of things. For the uninitiated, HDR photography involves taking multiple photos of a subject at different exposures, then blending the exposures together on a computer to create an image with a much higher [...]

There has been some confusion out there about the Omni Hotel’s recent topping out ceremony at 447 feet. The height of the building had been widely reported at 547 feet - this had always been my understanding. So what happened to the other 100 feet?
Omni didn’t actually drop 100 feet. The building [...]

This link will take you to an outstanding piece by Roger Scruton in the City Journal talking about designing livable cities and towns and famed European antimodernist Leon Krier’s soluitons. Krier’s thinking is along much the same lines as mine. Here’s an excerpt:
Krier’s solution is to replace the “downtown plus suburbs” system with [...]

The new Shamblee Library has opened at the Evans & Rosedale urban village, and I went by to get a few photos. The new library is nifty - the entrance almost has a hint of Mid-Century Modern going on there. All parking is either on-street or in back, so it comes right up [...]

Freakonomics has posted an article with thoughts from various pundits on the future of suburbs and development in America. Naturally, one of the contributors was James Howard Kunstler, author of The Geography of Nowhere, Home From Nowhere, The City In Mind, The Long Emergency, and World Made By Hand. Agree with him or [...]

The new Legal Aid of Northwest Texas building in the Pecan Place neighborhood (essentially being called the boundary between downtown and Uptown by the marketing types) has made impressive progress. As you can see, the building is topped out and facade work is currently underway. While most of the ground floor of the [...]

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The Star-Telegram is reporting that the Fort Worth Club has bought the properties they had for sale (several parking lots and the Star-Telegram Classifieds Building shown above), and the organization plans to use them all for parking:
FORT WORTH — The Fort Worth Club is under contract to buy the Star-Telegram’s four-story annex building, [...]

In this photo, green = lawn expansion site, blue = original expansion site.
I’ve heard rumors about this, and this is the first official confirmation: the S-T is reporting that Renzo Piano’s Kimbell expansion may not go on the parking lot next to the Kimbell and Modern after all, but instead may go on the [...]

The Carnegie, the new Sundance Square office building designed by David M. Schwarz, is nearing completion and tenant announcements are starting to be made. The Fort Worth Business Press reports that Comerica will join EOG Resources as a tenant:
As construction wraps up at The Carnegie building in downtown Fort Worth, Dallas-based Comerica Bank has [...]

Grabbed these three photos of TCC from the street. The fourth came from Fort Worth Forum member monee9696 from the Paddock Viaduct.

Thoughts:
1. Yes, this is how they planned it to turn out.
2. The pit is getting glass. I find it odd that the pit gets glass while the streetscape has to [...]

Fort Worth Forum member monee9696 has taken more photos of the TCC buildings on the Trinity Bluff being built, and they’re putting more facade on them. Unfortunately, it appears to be getting worse as they progress. As you can see, pretty much the entire Belknap frontage is a blank concrete slab wall.
This is [...]

Fort Worthology reader Mark R. sent me these photos of TCU’s new Student Union under construction at the end of their new campus commons. The new Student Union looks to be a very, very pretty piece of new traditional architecture (in stark and welcome contrast to the gray concrete slabs that Tarrant County College [...]

I wrote this response to somebody on another site who professed to liking the TCC’s concrete slab facade I posted the photo of yesterday - and used it as a chance to ding modern-day traditional architecture (represented by the Carnegie now under construction in Sundance Square). Thought I’d share. Warning: anti-modernist screed [...]