THE DOGRUN/2013
The Dogrun
a place to share ideas
The folks over at Architecture 2030 are in the process debuting another great idea: the 2030 Palette. The 2030 Palette is an interactive web platform containing a set of principles and actions for the planning and design of sustainable and resilient buildings and communities worldwide. In other words, it's a highly organized and interactive tool to help designers learn sustainable practices. The site is full of captivating diagrams and inspiring precedents organized by scale. The site is organized into five primarily swatches which are determined by scale from region to building. From there...
Cycling is a big part of the culture here at Lake|Flato and yesterday three members of our very own Southtown Strays had their inaugural Shell Ride. Over the past few weeks the Strays have quietly been gaining speed and on Sunday our crew was ready to make its way farther south. It was the first time out for Ashley, Seema, and our photographer Ryan. It was the second ride for Cotton, and approximately the tenth ride for Corey. The Shell Ride is a right of passage and the typical weekday (and occasional weekend) route for many LF cyclists. We head south from downtown past the San Antonio...
This past week in San Antonio was an unusually rainy one, leaving our typically overloaded bike racks here in the L|F office feeling a bit lonely. Despite the inclement weather, many LFer's held strong, covered up, and hit the streets - without having to hit the pump. It is, after all, a hard lifestyle to give up once you give it a go. The above graph reflects the average results of a baseline survey conducted each day over the course of last week to begin to track employees' commuting habits. While we did not plan on such a wet week, we are proud to see that more than half of the office...
Located within walking distance of the DePauw Campus, the Prindle Institute of Ethics lies within the 500-acre DePauw University Nature Park, situated above an abandoned limestone quarry. The Institute's facilities, positioned around a central courtyard, include conference rooms, an auditorium, a library, dining rooms, and guest suites capable of hosting visiting scholars. The central courtyard not only serves as a visual connection for the building's users, but also provides views to the natural environment for public spaces within the building. Answers by Todd Wascher and Andrew Herdeg...
On March 1st of this year the Austin joined the growing list of cities around the world banning plastic shopping bags. Our northern neighbor has many in San Antonio thinking it's time for us to follow suit. It is estimated that 100 billion plastic shopping bags are used in the U.S. each year which is just over 310 per person per year according to the Worldwatch Institute. This many bags require about 12 million barrels of oil. They are also a huge source of litter especially in coastal areas where marine life can mistake the bags for food and suffocate. Opponents of the ban argue that many...
Last week the USGBC voted to approve the new LEED v4 rating system and with it, new LEED AP accreditation Exams. We don’t know how much longer the current LEED 2009 exams will be available and this uncertainty has generated a lot of interest to earning credentials before the switch to LEED v4. Today we are setting a goal for the office: 15 new LEED APs by thanksgiving. This will increase our current LEED AP percentage from 31% to well over 60% and continue to establish ourselves has a firm that “walks the walk” on our commitment to sustainability.
We at Lake|Flato are proud to announce that our very own Bob Harris, FAIA and LEED Fellow, will be the keynote speaker at the North Texas Sustainable Showcase in Dallas this Thursday, July 11th. The event will focus on the importance of indoor air quality which has major impacts on occupant comfort, productivity, and health. While we often hear about outdoor air pollution (which is still very important of course), the conversation on indoor air pollution is just beginning to pick up speed which is critical because Americans spend, on average, 90% of their time in buildings (epa.gov). An...
We are pleased to introduce four new L|Fer's who come to us from across the country. Seema Kairam joins us most recently from San Francisco, where she was teaching an architecture studio at UC Berkeley with Deborah Berke. Originally from Pelham, NY, Seema received her MArch from Yale. She recently took a roadtrip from California to Texas, making many stops along her way to Lake Flato. Check out her awesome pictures in her first dogrun post, Destination Lake Flato . Maite Bermudez is our newest architecture intern from University of Texas at Austin. Maite was born and raised in Mexico City...
Wednesday July 10 th , winners will be announced for the San Antonio Low-Impact Development Design Competition with an awards dinner at the Pearl Stable. This competition, hosted by the San Antonio Land/Water Sustainability Forum, serves to draw attention to low-impact development solutions in our hometown, where the population is expected to double by 2050. Entrants were comprised of professional design teams who were given the option of one of three projects on a site in San Antonio including an urban redevelopment at Hemisfair Park, a green roadway on Evers Road, and a multi-family mixed-...
There is always some portion of my brain that is constantly spinning, trying to find opportunities for a good road trip. So after I accepted the job at Lake|Flato, my first thought was, which route are we going to drive? We did the first few hours of the drive on I-5 through California. But after hooking off around Bakersfield, we were not going to see another interstate until I-10 in Texas. I've always loved this drive through the Mojave Desert, nothing for miles. Meet my travel companion, Anya, a friend from SF who I convinced to tag along for the drive (she flew back when we got to Texas...
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