© Tom Jenkins

The most satisfying part of the Rachofsky House is that it is not a museum. There is no real reason why it shouldn’t be, considering the multitude of visitors and school fieldtrips that frequent the 11,000 square-foot, three-story building week in and week out. But the House remains a 100% private residence, still owned by Mr. Rachofsky and operated by a small staff. This all lends to a very unique and personal experience for the visitor, because not only does the intimacy of a house enrich one’s interaction with the art, but the lessened formal pressure allows for greater exploration of space and more appreciation to the architectural detail.

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© Chuck Smith Photography

Architects: Vincent Snyder Architects
Location: Dallas, Texas, USA
Project Team: Vincent Snyder, Jon Geib
Structural Engineer: Lobsinger & Potts Structural Engineer Inc.
Contractor: Urban Edge Developers
Project Year: 2007
Project Area: 3900 sqf
Photographs: Chuck Smith Photography

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© Andreas Praefcke / Wikimedia Commons

Each year the Texas Society of Architects recognizes a building that was completed 25-50 years ago which they believe has “stood the test of time by retaining its central form, character, and overall architectural integrity”.  This year, the prestigious honor is awarded to Fountain Place, designed by Henry Cobb of I. M. Pei & Partners and completed back in 1986 in Dallas, Texas.

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© Jeremy Bittermann

Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts is a building that supports the production of young artists. Where the school excels in the academic preparation of its students, it aspires to forge rigorous, creative thinkers and makers in spaces that inspire ideas and provoke experimentation and production. The 200,000 sqf expansion to the Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts, designed by Allied Works Architecture, includes areas for the core programs of music, dance, theater, and visual arts, as well as spaces for assembly and traditional academic instruction. The expansion is organized as simple loft spaces of concrete, brick and glass that rotate around and extend outward from an open-air central amphitheater, known to students as the ‘Green Room’. The program clusters are contained in distinct volumes that provide individual identity yet overlap adjacent disciplines in plan and section. Project description, images and drawings following the break.

Architects: Allied Works Architecture
Location: 2501 Flora St, Dallas, Texas, USA
Project Team: Brad Cloepfil (Principal), Chris Bixby (Project Lead), David Suttle (Project Architect)
Project Area: 202,000 sqf
Project Year: 2008
Photographs: Jeremy Bittermann and Vicky Sambunaris

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© Overland Partners

Architects: Overland Partners
Location: Dallas, Texas, USA
Project area: 75,000 sq. ft.
Project year: 2010
Photographs: Courtesy of Overland Partners

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Dallas is hosting both the Super Bowl this coming Sunday and this weeks Architecture City Guide!  If you are heading there for the big game be sure to take a look at our list of buildings featured after the break.  We want to hear from you, so take a minute to add your favorite can’t miss buildings in Dallas in our comment section below.

The Architecture City Guide: Dallas list and corresponding map after the break!

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© Charles Davis Smith

The site for the Dallas Public Library Lochwood Branch, is bound by a strip mall, apartment complex, and residential neighborhood, which presented significant contextual opportunities. The design centers on addressing each context, as well as the library’s programming needs, through directing and screening views and considering varied levels of scale.

More photographs and drawings of the library designed by Meyer, Scherer & Rockcastle following the break.

Architects: Meyer, Scherer & Rockcastle, Ltd.
Location: Dallas, Texas, USA
Associate Architect: FKP Architects, Inc.
Mechanical and Electrical Engineers: M.E.P. Consulting Engineers, Inc.
Structural Engineer: Datum Gojer Engineers, LLC
Civil Engineer: Pacheco Koch Consulting Engineers, Inc.
Landscape Architect: Talley Associates, Inc.
General Contractor: J.C. Commercial
Project Area: 20,000 sqf
Project Year: 2009
Photographs: Charles Davis Smith

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© Nigel Young / Foster + Partners

Location: Dallas, USA
Architects: Foster + Partners
Team: Norman Foster, Spencer de Grey, Stefan Behling, Michael Jones, James McGrath, Bjørn Polzin, Laszlo Pallagi, Morgan Fleming, Leonhard Weil, John Small, Ingrid Sölken, Hugh Whitehead, Francis Aish
Client: AT+T Performing Arts Center
Collaborating Architect: Kendall Heaton Associates
Main Contractor: Linbeck Construction
Acoustician: Sound Space Design
Theatre Consultant: Theatre Projects Consultants
Structural Engineers: Buro Happold, Thornton-Tomasetti Engineers
Services Engineers: Battle McCarthy, CHP & Associates
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The new Dallas Cowboys Stadium, designed by the HKS Sports & Entertainment Group opened June 6 for it’s first public event. The new venue, located in Arlington, Texas, is the home of the Dallas Cowboys, one of the National Football League’s (NFL) most watched teams in the USA.

At over 3 million-square-foot and a capacity of up to 100,000 fans it is the largest NFL venue ever built, and maybe one of the most spectacular stadiums worldwide. You can read more key highlights after the break and more images of the stadium. read more »

A few days ago, Thom Mayne unveiled his $185 million museum design for the Perot Museum of Nature and Science at Victory Park in Dallas, which is set for groundbreaking later this fall.  ”As instruments of education and social change, museums have the potential to shape our understanding of ourselves and the world in which we live…As our global environment faces ever more critical challenges, a broader understanding of the interdependence of natural systems is becoming more essential to our survival and evolution. Museums dedicated to nature and science play a key role in expanding our understanding of these complex systems,” explained Mayne.

More about the museum after the break. read more »

The folks at Art & Seek published a video with interesting insights on the construction of the Wyly Theater in Dallas, TX designed by REX | OMA, which is almost complete.

You can see interesting details on the facade and the engineering behind one of the most innovative contemporary theaters. Follow the link to see to whole video.

The Wyly Theatre in Dallas is almost finished. This project is very interesting, and REX/OMA show once again how designing a building goes way beyond that working on the volumes and the skin, but to rethink the program itself.

Anyone familiar with a theatre knows the program order hasn´t changed much, as it´s pretty much the same you find on Neufert. But REX/OMA take this a step further, by re-studying the program relations and adjacencies, resulting on a unique building. Perfect for the client, as the Dallas Theater Center (DTC) is recognized as one of the country’s few innovative theater companies located outside the triumvirate of New York, Chicago, and Seattle. On the top of that, an interesting aluminium skin adds to make this building unique.

The facade is being installed this days, opening expected during 2009.

Now, the architects description:

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