Texas Studios Celebrate Four TxA Design Award Wins

Designed in partnership with Barnes Gromatzky Kosarek Architects, this bold move to promote urban revitalization transforms a 1970s-era mall into a LEED Gold Certified, world-class educational flagship campus at the heart of a mixed-use redevelopment. With training facilities from health sciences simulation spaces to a culinary arts center, the project helps prepare students for some of the region’s most in-demand jobs, furthering ACC’s mission to provide affordable access to education and community development.

Setting a benchmark for inclusive urban living, Oak Lawn Place is North Texas’ first affordable housing development catered to LGBTQIA+ seniors. Developed with Resource Center—one of the country’s largest LGBTQIA+ community centers and a key North Texas HIV/AIDS service organization—the project offers a home and warm welcome to qualifying applicants over 55. Designed with the belief that housing can and should be both affordable and beautiful, Oak Lawn Place transforms what was an industrial boat salvage yard into Dallas Morning News architecture critic Mark Lamster’s “favorite new building in Dallas.”

The RAD Center is the first mass timber construction on campus at the University of Houston. This innovative structure replaces an underground dining facility that was severely damaged during Hurricane Harvey and serves as a model for sustainable design and construction. It presents an elevation of the campus experience—literally. In contrast to the below-grade dining hall, this design rises as a beacon and a foil to its brutalist neighbors. The RAD’s transparent façade and glowing interior create a “lantern in the woodlands,” welcoming up to 400 students and staff into a warm, communal wellness-boost of timber and light.

The skeleton of a former Sears department store has been transformed into one of UT Southwestern’s largest outpatient centers. What was idle space in a part of Dallas sorely lacking healthcare infrastructure is now a prevention and screening gateway for greatest-need services. This adaptive reuse project turns a place of consumption into a place of healing, providing a cornerstone for wellness in southern Dallas.