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Since our founding in 1984, Lake|Flato has expanded to all floors and corners of our office at 311 Third Street in San Antonio. After committing to renovating our office into a healthy, high-performing, hybrid workplace, we decided to go against the grain of the building’s origins as a former car dealership and remove all parking and cars to create a community-centric outdoor living room. For a firm with a focus on sustainability, expanding our office meant removing rather than adding, and encouraging human and environmental health through outdoor amenities, connections to nature, and...
Investigations Team: Adam Martin, Cameron Goldsmith As cities in Texas grow their economies, the demand for housing especially in and near urban areas increases, and in-turn, the price of housing increases beyond the ability of many Texans to afford a decent quality of life. A variety of government-sponsored financial incentive mechanisms exist for private developers who wish to build affordable housing. In most Texas cities, these incentive programs are not mandatory, but may be pursued by any multi-family or mixed-use development. While some publicly owned affordable housing still exists in...
Investigations Team: Ashley Hereen, Justin Garrison, Melina Phillips, James Thoreen How are urban landscapes and urban development related? How do urban landscapes influence development trends in communities within a region? How does open space influence the character of a community? How can unique environmental and ecological contexts be leveraged to create meainfgul and memorable destinations that foster community? How can design facilitate connections and enable meaninful interactions between people and their environments? These are the questions asked by our Investigations initiative in...
The end of my 16 year long formal education was the best thing to happen to my appetite for knowledge. In November of 2020, I moved back to Cairo after a year long stay in San Antonio as a 'cultural and educational exchange visitor' to intern at Lake Flato. And boy was there a lot of culture and education to be exchanged. Working with the wonderful architects and designers at Lake Flato has taught me so much that I could have never learned in school. Beyond learning about the technical skills necessary to bring a design to fruition, it reinforced in my mind just how much of a connection the...
Unsung Architects is a series celebrating architects not often highlighted in academia with the intent to collectively educate and provide new perspectives within the architecture discipline. HASSAN FATHY: Hassan Fathy (1900-1989), a regional modernist, was Egypt’s most well-known architect in the 20th century, but his (controversial) popularity did not extend beyond the region. His formative years as an architect were during a time when Egypt was within its struggle to gain sovereignty against the British. It was also a time when Romanticism & Enlightenment were thriving, creating waves...
This May 19th-23rd, hundreds of academic researchers and design practitioners will gather virtually for the 52 nd annual Environmental Design Research Association (EDRA) conference to share new research-based knowledge about the built environment, with a focus this year on just environments. Presentations in the past have covered topics as wide-ranging as design technology, sustainability art, ecodistricts, and workplace design, with most work addressing some aspect of the climate crisis, wellness and/or equity. Besides allowing fun glimpses into countless ongoing research efforts, EDRA...
Investigations Team: Andrew Herdeg, Kelly Weckman, Allison Peitz We are at a critical point in time in which the “silver wave” of the baby boomer generation is growing rapidly and beginning to enter retirement age. This large cohort of seniors will need housing, and ideally, housing that can fit their changing needs as they age. There is a growing desire to age in place and avoid the upheaval of displacement so late in life. Senior living communities that can adapt to the changing needs of aging seniors are becoming a commodity, and as this sector grows there is an opportunity to explore...
The following interview takes the award for being the longest in the making. And when I say longest, I mean it’s taken close to three years to get us here. If memory serves me correctly, I remember flipping through Divisare, a few years ago, when I spotted the Tucson Mountain Retreat designed by Dust Architects. I instantly looked up their website (My name is Rick Torres and I have an design website addiction.) and soon discovered a body of work that displays the powerful effect that architecture, through elements like space, light, mass, and materiality can have on atmosphere and mood. I...
Click here to listen to Flake Radio Episode #2: Longevity. How long should we design a building to last?
Click here to listen to Flake Radio Episode #1: Resilience Resilience is the ability to bounce back from adversity. Related to the built environment, it describes the design strategies that can help buildings or communities survive natural or human caused disasters, and to thrive in their aftermath. In this podcast we reflect on our experiences with hurricanes Harvey and Irma and explore the resilient design strategies that will allow our projects to support their communities during times of crisis.
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