White Rock Lake
“I happen to know that it’s the largest urban lake in the country. It’s the sort of thing that is unexpected. It’s the kind of thing that you might expect to see in Denver, or maybe Austin or Portland, or a place that’s a really recreational city. It’s the kind of amenity that they take for granted and so, because of that, it’s important and unique. Dallas doesn’t have a single iconic park in the way that New York has Central Park or San Francisco has Golden Gate Park or even Atlanta has the main park in midtown. If Dallas were to have a park like that, White Rock would be it. It’s the place where the whole city can come together.”
Rick Hibbs, IA Interior Architects
Corporate interior architecture
Half-Price Books
“Me and my husband both, we hang out there a lot. We are both book-fiends, essentially. When we were looking for a house, I think every house that had bookshelves, we were like, ‘OK, we love this house.’
It’s the collection of books that they have. That’s always different. It’s kind of like having my own little revolving library of various architecture and fine arts books. There’s a certain ad-hoc-ness about the way they’ve included plants outside and inside where they have tables and chairs. I find that quirky. They have this table there; the base of it is — I’m not quite sure if it’s an actual wood — but it’s almost like the trunk of a tree. It’s all gnarly. It’s the eclectic-ness of it that is kind of inspiring to me.”
Sharmila Rao-Pence, Thatcher Design principal
Hospitality projects
Greenbelt along electrical easement between Faircrest and Vistadale >>
“There’s just something cool about having that much wide-open space in the middle of the city to go and just play. In essence, it’s like having a park. It’s probably 75 to 80 feet wide, so you have a great opportunity to play some football and some soccer. The amenities are whatever you want to bring. There is no designated park equipment. There is no anything like that. It’s just sitting there waiting to be conquered. Deep down I think we all have that little element inside of us that … you just want to go out and conquer the field and see what you’re made of.”
James Hamilton, Omniplan project architect
Large-scale retail, higher education
NorthPark Center
“The original mall is so well constructed in terms of using a lot of technology — or structure, I guess. That was what you could call a pretty basic structure, like a double-T kind of system that you would use for a parking garage. Those double-Ts are used up high where they have clerestory windows and they let light in. It’s just a very easy, simple type of construction, but yet elegantly handled. I mean malls can be really tacky — and just dated — and that one’s just very elegant.”
Sharon Odum, Sharon Odum Architect owner
Contemporary residential and small-scale commercial
