THE DOGRUN

This past school year a team of 6th grade entrepreneurs / venture capitalists formed a strategic alliance with Lake Flato to work on the design of some major new civic architecture that is being called a "game changer" for the AEC industry. The projects on the drawing boards were conceived and masterminded by the 6th graders with design consulting services performed by Lake Flato.  The projects include a rotating restaurant up in a tree with toboggan slides and ice skating rink, a subterranean river walk with a medieval weapons gallery, a mobile cooking school and cupcake shop made of train cars, and a chocolate mining facility and associated defensive fortifications on Ganymede (7th moon of Jupiter). The enterprising 6th graders are operating under Big Brothers Big Sisters of South Texas.  Lake Flato was sought out by BBBS to partner in this unique design venture because of LF's cross-disciplinary approach to design and a keen interest in architecture that blends the indoors and outdoors, as well as the firm's strong desire to share its passions with the younger generation of budding architects, developers, and visionaries.  In addition the firm also has experience in the treehouse sector. Design work for the projects happened in a frantic series of pizza-and-juice-box-fueled charrettes spanning several lunch hours at the Lake Flato offices and involved numerous professionals working across disciplinary boundaries to realize these feats of engineering and design. Feasibility studies and a first round of cost estimates for the projects are now underway.