Cowtown Renaissance: Creating a Downtown Plan That Gave Texans a Place to Walk
Our post from October 22 gave a brief history of how we came to be involved in three decades of planning and architecture in Fort Worth, TX. This second installation on our work in Fort Worth delves into some of the planning issues we encountered and provides some background on several of the more important … Continue reading
Prof. Peabody’s Improbable History of Planning: How We Began Working in Fort Worth
By those that know of David M. Schwarz Architects, but do not know us well, one question is asked time and again. With the forthcoming opening of the actual “square” in Sundance Square, which also marks the 25th year of our planning efforts in downtown Fort Worth, Texas, it is finally time to definitively answer … Continue reading
Architecture and Acoustics: You Know Greatness When You Hear It
Architecture and acoustics are highly dependent on each other. Every design element in the room, down to the smallest ornament, shapes the sound. Nothing should happen by accident. Working with acousticians, one quickly learns that acoustics is one third art, one third science, and one third black magic (actually something between intuition and malarkey). To … Continue reading
Ten Buildings That Changed DC
PBS recently aired an ambitious documentary presuming to tell us about the “Ten Buildings that Changed America.” After what may have been a tortuous consideration of which ten should be the ten, the producers settled on selections that ranged from Albert Kahn’s commissions for Henry Ford in Highland Park, Mich., to Frank Gehry’s Disney Concert … Continue reading
Downtown Crown’s First Retail Facade is Up
We recently paid a visit to the site of the future Downtown Crown in Gaithersburg to see the progress on our retail buildings currently under construction. The skin on retail Building A3 is on and the storefront will be installed soon. The majority of the steel has been erected for building C1 and the façades should … Continue reading
Opening the Drugstore Window
Drugstores are turning their back on the communities that at one time were their greatest patrons. Once the heart of Main Street and the core of the community, the pharmacy, with its soda fountain and lunch counter, used to anchor our neighborhoods–and, indeed, even much of our social lives. The news that was heard, the … Continue reading
In Honoring the Past, a New Future for DC Public Schools
From the time of its founding, the DC public school system has pretty much always been both a proving ground for education and a demonstration of the power that architecture holds to enhance student experience and success. Today, the District is in the middle of an ambitious plan to upgrade and modernize its schools. DC’s … Continue reading
Q&A with 2012 DMSAS Fellow Mark Elliott
One of four recipients of the DMSAS Traveling Fellowship in 2012, Mark Elliott, now in his final year at the University of Maryland, spent ten weeks interning at DMSAS and took his fellowship travels in Germany, Austria and the Czech Republic. Mark returned to DMSAS earlier this month to present his work abroad to the … Continue reading
Designing from the Hospital Bed
As David M. Schwarz Architects embarks on the master planning and design of yet another significant phase of Cook Children’s Medical Center in Fort Worth, Tex. – a project we’ve been allied with since 1985 –DMSAS principal Craig Williams shares with his colleagues the musings accumulated during a collection of summertime hospital visits. While this … Continue reading
Parchment 
A Square is Born: The Thinking Behind Sundance’s New Plaza
Posted by dmsarchitects on October 31, 2013 · 1 Comment
On November 1st, the citizens of Fort Worth will experience the most dramatic change to their downtown since the discovery of oil in 1917. What most of them may never realize is that this event was part of a plan conceived 25 years ago. It is but one of many important milestones that have characterized … Continue reading →
Category Commentary, Design · Tagged with cities, design, DMSAS, Fort Worth, placemaking, planning, urban