5 Fort Worth area firms honored by local chapter of American Institute of Architects

Five Fort Worth area architecture firms swept the American Institute of Architects Fort Worth’s annual design awards.

The event, taking place from 10:30 a.m. to noon Saturday, Feb. 17 at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, honors architects and designers for their contributions to the city’s built environment.

The winners were announced last year at the Modern followed by a lecture by juror Emmanual Ramírez of Estudio MMX in Mexico City. He was joined by jurors Michelle Old of Kirksey Architecture in Houston and Tobin Smith of Tobin Smith Architect in San Antonio.

Of the 33 submissions, a jury of three noted architects selected eight projects, including two studio (or unbuilt and conceptual) awards, two merit awards, one community impact award and three honor awards, the highest honor.

The winners, whose projects are largely concentrated on the city’s west and south sides, include some of the most influential firms in the region.

Ibañez Shaw Architecture swept the studio awards for the Exchange Hotel in the Stockyards and 665 S. Main in the Near Southside. It also won two honors awards, the organization’s highest form of recognition, for the Pella Experience Fort Worth in west Fort Worth and 61 Osteria in downtown, receiving high accolades for attention to detail, preservation, focus on common areas and overall impeccable work.

The Exchange was noted for retaining the character of the area, which includes definitive Western designs like the Cowtown Coliseum and Mule Alley but also more mundane historic one and two story brick and wood structures on the periphery of the entertainment district. “We felt like this was a project from Fort Worth,” Old said of the hotel’s modern features and distinct punch hole-like facades.

Likewise, 665 S. Main, a proposed multistory office tower, retains the facade of a historic red brick building. It is surrounded by a new lobby with four solid glass floors above.

“It’s great this proposal retains a piece of history,” Smith said. The new ground floor, setback from the original entry, blends the brick with the new glass features. “It supercharges the site,” he said of the “rhythmic” design.

“We hope this is realized,” he said.

The Beck Group’s renovation of the historic 464 Bailey won a merit award for its welcome reimagining of a historic office building only a mile from the renowned Cultural District museums.

Ramírez called it an “intervention,” an overused, all-encompassing and occasionally passive word in the architecture world. He’s saying the building, now Beck’s headquarters, needed some help but in another world, maybe not this kind of help.

“It’s an interesting match between ‘new’ and ‘different’” he said. Originally built in 1954, Beck’s team made sure the brick one-story building would be left intact while including a second floor with a terrace, which original architect Preston M. Geren Jr. left as a possibility. Old, the Houston architect, praised Beck for retaining its character of the site while also preserving the original trees.

Arguably one of the best architecture and interior design firms in town, Konstrukcio Studio, won a merit award for its redesign of a 665-square foot kitchen on Autumn Drive. The firm, along with contractor Bogle Constructs, created a thoughtfully done project maintaining its mid-century feel but providing new hardware, lighting and more open space.

“The new materials, hardware features — it’s all spot on. When you have that opportunity, it could go so well or so poorly. They nailed it,” Smith, the San Antonio architect, said.

VLK Architects, working with Pogue Construction, won the new Community Impact Award for the Eagle Mountain-Saginaw school district’s Leadership Training and Discovery Center. The award goes to a building that makes a difference in its community, frequently reserved for social services or educational facilities.

Old said the Beck team faced a challenge of building on an unpredictable terrain for any architect: around water. In this case, they intentionally took the challenge and built the educational facility close to Marine Creek Lake. They met the challenge, Old said, by balancing a new building on a precarious site to fit the project’s dedication to science and sustainability education. Old called project successful.

Ibañez Shaw’s headquarters for the Pella Experience, the headquarters for Pella Glass, and 61 Osteria, received praise for divergent reasons.

The Pella project, designed with RJM Construction, was an example of overcoming an architect’s nightmare hurdles, said Tobin, the San Antonio architect, including an existing retail building, limiting existing conditions, and a corporate client. “Out of that came mood and magic we thought were quite stunning,” he said, describing the gray and white interior and the selective use of color, in this case a bright yellow.

For 61 Osteria, which opened last year in the historic First on 7th downtown, brightly colored fabric chairs and carpets with a combination of teak, black Formica and steel in the starkly modernist concrete and glass building.

According to Ramírez, the details, down to the cut stone wall and fabric make a rewarding interior and dining experience.

Glen Rose-based Jeff Garnett, who recently also won an AIA Texas studio award, won an honor award for his studio. Tobin and Old were enthusiastic about what he did with the narrow, tunnel-like limestone building in the growing town square. Garnett’s focus integrating the interior with the exterior created a building that has, as he said, is “wonderful.”

That focus was “a brilliant move,” he said.

Tickets are free for members and $25 for non-members. Tickets are available at eventbrite.