October 12, 2023

Perkins&Will Earns Five Awards from Dallas Architecture Forum for Significant Impact in North Texas

Celebrating its 25th Anniversary, the DAF recognized 25 projects from the last 25 years.

(from left to right) Robert Ting, Stefan Burnett, Meredith Hunt, Meredith Comley, Carissa Perez, Ron Stelmarski, Vandana Nayak, Amber Wernick, and Emily Zekany represent the Dallas studio at the Forum's celebratory Awards Dinner

The Dallas Architecture Forum recently marked its 25th Anniversary with a celebration of inspired architecture, and it was a banner night for Perkins&Will.

Surveying the last quarter century of architectural work in Dallas-Fort Worth, the Forum recognized 25 projects for improving the area’s social and urban fabric. Of the 25 winners, our Dallas studio designed not one, but three: the Baylor Scott & White Health Administrative Center, the Singing Hills Recreation and Senior Center, and the Pittman Hotel (which earned awards in two categories!).

The panel of esteemed jurors then named our Fair Park Master Plan as one of the 10 projects in progress with the greatest potential to positively impact North Texas.

Read on to see what the jury had to say and what makes these winning projects special.

category: commercial

Baylor Scott & White Health Administrative Center

“Striking intersection with the landscape, beautifully detailed, that takes full advantage of the site.”
—Carlos Jimenez, Rice University, Carlos Jimenez Studio

The Administration Center is at the forefront of the emerging “groundscaper” trend. Groundscapers are defined as buildings that are as wide as skyscrapers are tall. By alleviating the need for a cramped elevator ride, groundscrapers keep people appropriately distanced, as well as more active.

category: civic, cultural, and public art

Singing Hills Recreation Center

“Strong and thoughtful design not normally seen in a recreation project with light rail center access programmed to allow use of mass transit.”
—Deborah Berke, FAIA, Dean of the Yale School of Architecture, Deborah Berke Partners

The Singing Hills Recreation Center is a first of its kind in Dallas—a multi-generational, community-focused facility in a historically underserved neighborhood, connected to a commuter rail station. The new center serves as a platform for social interaction where human activities—recreation, community, education—intersect. Our design team sought to enhance the beauty of the area by creating a facility that mimics the natural landscape in an abstracted way. By trimming the underbrush and lower limbs of the densely treed area, a space for human activity to take place among nature was revealed.

categories: Retail, Mixed Use and Hospitality / Adaptive Re-Use, Preservations and Non-Residential Restoration

The Pittman Hotel

“Impressed by how the addition amplifies the existing historic building in an elegant way, creating a dialogue between the two parts.”
—Maurice Cox, FAIA, NOMA, City of Chicago Planner Director

“Intuition to finish an urban edge that had been erased—the urban fabric of the new building complements the older building.”
—Brigitte Shim, FRAIC, Hon. FAIA, University of Toronto, Shim + Sutciff

Built in 1916, The Knights of Pythias Temple was Dallas’ first major commercial building designed, financed, and built by the Black community and was their business center and vibrant social hub throughout the early 1900s. Decades of urban upheaval and social change left the building vacant and at risk of becoming part of the slow erasure of the city’s cultural memory. The building’s renovation and addition mark the culmination of a slow comeback for the entire Deep Ellum neighborhood and the establishment of its first hotel, reconnecting the historic structure to the urban patchwork of the district.

category: landscape, Urban Design, Public Space, Master Plan

Fair Park Master Plan

“Returning the original promise as a site for public spaces for the greater community.”
—Deborah Berke

Fair Park is a National Historic Landmark that used to be full of life and energy, but over time has become overlooked and undervalued. The complex park has many different parts including the Music Hall, State Fair grounds and Convention Center, and its infrastructure needs to hold large crowds and manage massive flows of people. This is where we come in. We are designing a master plan that will nurture growth and function as a part of the Dallas parks “network.” Responding to the neighborhood’s current environmental, social, spatial and cultural phenomena, our team is working to put the “park” back in Fair Park.

Perkins&Will Earns Five Awards from Dallas Architecture Forum for Significant Impact in North Texas

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