GFF Architects have a mission to create memorable places and vision to be a multi-disciplinary practice excelling in design, management, technology, and service.
1. John Bunker Sands Wetland Center | GFF Architects
The John Bunker Sands Wetland Center is the hub of environmental and social interest for the three,100 acres of synthetic wetland habitat on the Rosewood Seagoville Ranch property. the middle provides opportunities for research, education, wildlife observation and community gathering. The 5,400 SF facility fulfills many roles including a staging and exhibit hall for interactive exhibits; a completely equipped research laboratory to be used by research groups to check the wetland plants and animals; a classroom for hands-on educational and research use; on-site manager office; and an observation deck to look at the wetlands. The building will house restrooms, a prep kitchen to accommodate larger events and personal sleeping quarters for research students.
2. The Hockaday School Center for the Arts
The new Visual and humanistic discipline facility anchors the northwest corner of the campus and signals a renewed commitment to the humanities. The 85,000 SF program includes new rehearsal space for orchestra and chorus, a 200-seat recording equipment theater, scene shop, expanded and enhanced studios for painting and ceramics, picture gallery and rooms for individual music instruction and practice, together with associated support, office and cupboard space. The program elements wrap around a 650-seat proscenium theater with a 70-foot fly space, utilizing the arena lobby as a gallery and multipurpose gathering space during regular school hours. New outdoor spaces include an amphitheater, areas for art display and a piece space for ceramics and enormous sculpture.
3. The Hockaday School – Master Plan | GFF Architects
GFF has served The Hockaday School continuously since 1996. The 100-acre campus in North Dallas has provided a setting for one the premiere secondary schools for young women within the country. This program reflects projects completed since 1997 and illustrates projects to be accomplished within the future. Of particular note as completed projects, the Liza Lee Academic centre, the Ashley Priddy Lower School, the Wellness Center and therefore the Middle and Lower School Building renovation. Significant projects within the future include the Crow Science Center renovation and expansion, the edifice improvements, the Central Plant expansion and major modifications to the Fine Arts facilities.
The Hockaday campus provides a setting of tranquility in an exceedingly rigorous academic environment. The campus buildings of buff St. Joe Brick, cream-colored limestone and glass infused with natural light with views to the heavily-treed landscape and courtyards meld nature with outstanding educational facilities.
4. The Mockingbird
The Mockingbird may be a built project on the location of the recently demolished Love Field Inn. The hotel was considered a watch sore that greeted travelers strolling back from Dallas-Love Field Airport. The restaurant not only improves the visual quality of West Mockingbird Lane, but also provides airport workers, travelers and hotel guests an area to interrupt bread during a neighborhood otherwise vacant of memorable dining experiences.
Drawing inspiration from a client’s fascination with pre-engineered metal building structures, the shape of the building is well distinguishable in its context. Its 16:12 sloped roof is powerfully normal, but a curtain wall cuts the shape and creates a dynamic visual reference to the busy street and patio area. The high, sloped ceilings create reverent interior space and a well-recognized level of comfort for patrons sitting in repurposed church pews. The kitchen spaces tackle a separate volume but are connected by an oversized opening, allowing intimate interaction between people who prepare and people who nourish.
5. Milestone Church | GFF Architects
The Church Works Studio of GFF completed schematic design work on a brand new campus for Milestone Church. The church is relocating from their current facility to a hilly, heavily wooded 52-acre site located in Keller, Texas, a suburb of the city. The initial phase of the project consists of a 70,000 SF building that has an expandable 1,500 seat worship space, children’s education areas, a community commons, administration space and site improvements like patios, a hike-and-bike trail and parking. The Church Works Studio used the site’s constraints to guide the placement of the project’s components during a sensitive, yet practical, manner. The building was designed to blend with the positioning through the employment of stone and by capitalizing on views, access to outdoor spaces, and shut proximity to parking.
6. First United Methodists of Richardson
First United Methodist Church Richardson is found on an approximately 20 acre site located at 503 North Central Expressway in Richardson, Texas. The church recently expanded their existing campus to accommodate current and projected growth in various church ministry areas. Located within the heart of the campus, the Ministry Center is the organizational ‘hub’ that connects the assorted worship and administrative components under one roof. Within it’s a 500-seat Worship and humanities space, that has a venue for contemporary style worship, theatrical performances, concerts and lectures. Celebration Hall houses a multi-purpose community gathering space and banquet hall on the primary floor, and centralized administrative spaces are located on the second floor. a brand new Music Suite at the east end of the present sanctuary provides needed rehearsal space for the choir and children’s music ministries, and offices for the musical style ministry. The ultimate component of the expansion could be a renovation of the prevailing Family Life Center, consisting primarily of recent worship and lounge spaces for the youth program.
7. Windsong Ranch Amenity Center
Windsong Ranch is a 2,000 acre multi-use development in Prosper, Texas. The programme includes retail, multi-family, office, schools and single family residences. Phase 1 comprises 270 single family home sites, site infrastructure and therefore the first of 4 amenities centers. GFF is functioning with landscape gardener TBG Partners to form a facility that reflects the North Texas prairie on which it’s built. The ability includes a marketing center, café, fitness center, outdoor eating and entertainment areas, and support spaces for the 2 swimming pools. Expansive and sheltering roofs protect the glass enclosed interior spaces, further because of the large outdoor gathering spaces. the fabric palette is composed of natural stones and woods, and therefore the structure is exposed and cleanly detailed in order that it becomes an integral part of the composition.
8. Aspen Heights West Campus | GFF Architects
Aspen West Campus is an off-campus student housing apartment tower located within the West Campus neighborhood immediately adjacent to the University of Texas at Austin campus. the positioning is approximately ½ acre, located at Rio Bravo St. and 21st St. The project program consists of 166 apartments and 466 bedrooms, leasing, fitness, club room, pool deck on the 6th level, service space and five levels of below grade parking.
The building envelope consists of primarily storefront and stucco at the bottom level, and metal panels, operable aluminum windows and simulated stucco at the upper levels. The metal panels are color coated steel sheets, installed with lapped and hemmed joints over continuous insulation. To rationalize the varied vertical setback zoning requirements, the first design concept seeks to unify the various resulting floor plates into a singular. A “running bond” pattern of the façade materials is employed to resolve the unit plan layouts and window locations that change at each level that the building footprint shrinks.
9. Factory Six03
One of the foremost recognizable forms on the Dallas skyline, the 603 Munger complex with its three 20-foot tall roof-top water tanks has anchored the West End for over 100 years. Granite Properties recognized the potential for this landmark structure to draw in a replacement breed of creative office tenants and restaurants, and purchased the complex in late 2015. in-built three phases from 1903 to 1922, the complex originally housed the Brown Cracker and Candy Company, which employed 1,000 workers and was the most important cracker factory within the country at the time. The building occupies a uniquely shaped site which was created by the influences of the various rail lines within the warehouse district, and therefore the confluence of the 2 original City of Dallas survey grids. The resulting outdoor urban space is one among an awfully few of its kind and scale that continues to be because the city has grown.
GFF teamed with ArchiTexas to style the rehabilitation of 603 Munger. The masonry exterior is being cleaned and reconstructed. New, historically accurate windows are being installed throughout. Unsympathetic interior modifications are reversed and corrected, and therefore the iconic water tanks are going to be replaced to match the original. Modern additions include new plaza landscaping and first building entry, updated interior atrium and skylight, and new lease space and amenity areas created on the roofs of both the 4- and 7-story buildings. The 215,000 SF project has been branded by Granite as Factory Six03, and can be ready for occupancy within the 2nd quarter of 2017.
10. Fortune 500 Campus Interiors | GFF Architects
Located on approximately 75 acres on the northwest corner of Preston and Hedgcoxe in Plano’s Legacy Business Park, this Fortune 500 company hired GFF to style eight buildings comprising approximately 1.8 million SF of office space and an 80,000 SF centre. This company strives to possess an energetic workplace that’s always improving and growing supported the most effective and newest resources. GFF has developed and coordinated an office space culminating in an exceedingly dynamic atmosphere. This global, diversified financial provider is concentrated on creating an environment to boost its team-oriented culture and support efforts to draw in and retain top talent. a spotlight on open office space enables a collaborative, teamwork approach, while providing meeting rooms with a range of meeting styles. Breakout areas and enclosed touchdown spaces provide locations for casual meetings.
11. AG Hill Partners | GFF Architects
When the AG Hill Partners selected the historic Highland Park Village for the situation for his or her new family offices, they turned to GFF Interiors to assist bring a replacement upscale office space to the unique Mediterranean Spanish-style of the prevailing shopping development. This 28,000 SF second level space exudes a high standard of elegance and quality from front to back by making use of limestone floors, oak woodwork and steel window frames that lace it into the materiality and character of the 1949 building that houses it. an infatuated storey entrance unveils to an enormous second level lobby and community lounge with natural light cascading down from large skylights above. This rich sequence of gathering spaces, luxurious offices and refined conference rooms all combine to showcase the Family’s legacy and dedication to their companies, their clients and also the surrounding community. This project was exhausted in collaboration with Emily Summers Design Associates.
12. Westmoreland Heights Neighborhood Master Plan
The area of west Dallas has seen a recent resurgence in development activity along Singleton Boulevard south of the Trinity River. Improvements just like the construction of the Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge and up to date streetscape amenities along Singleton have made the neighborhoods of west Dallas’ La Bajada, Lake West and Westmoreland Heights important locations for those seeking low to moderate income housing options. Builders of Hope is seeking to exploit its past improvements in Westmoreland Heights by preparing a program for the complete neighborhood through a thoughtful, consensus building process. This vast 660 acre, mostly single family neighborhood has three distinct enclaves near the old Trinity River corridor that serves a mostly elderly African-American and young Latino community. Public improvements at Tipton Park, expanded trail access, and over 150 new homes within the last 15 years are making this area on the cusp of a thriving neighborhood; however, the sobering fact of there being over 300 vacant lots and a curiously high proportion of elderly singles make each block seem unnecessarily blighted and in desperate need of a plan for the whole neighborhood. Design solutions may include updating the land use plan for the realm, making recommendations for specific projects on the subsequent Bond Program, detailed site planning in strategic locations, and identifying potential catalyst projects within the area.
13. Santa Fe Trail Corridor | GFF Architects
The capital of New Mexico Trail is currently in situ as a 12-foot wide ribbon of concrete, connecting the south end of White Rock Lake Park to the DART station in Deep Ellum but with no amenities or enhancements. The chum’s organization desires to possess a corridor land use plan, a plan and set of design guidelines which are able to serve to preserve the environmental quality of the corridor, encourage consistent, efficient decision-making during the phased development and enhancement of the trail in years to come back, recommend redevelopment opportunities and land use transformations within the trail corridor, propose linkages and extensions to attach the Trail to additional key destinations and to draw in additional financial resources to the project. To retort to NCTCOG 2009 needing Sustainable Projects, GFF Planning assisted the chums in successfully securing a grant to style the amenities and gateway features for the Trail. Then in late 2012 we prepared a program for an approximate 1.5 mile segment of the Santa Fe Trail to function as an example or prototype for how the whole length of the trail might ultimately develop.
14. Dallas Farmers Market Streetscape
As an element of the $65 million makeover to the Dallas Farmers Market, the town of Dallas tasked GFF Planning with developing the streetscape adjacent to multiple existing streets. The City’s and master developers’ ultimate vision for the Market was to form a preferred destination not just for local residents, but also for tourists searching for an experience that’s authentically Dallas within a pedestrian oriented setting. As well, the prevailing street grid had to still accommodate the same old to and fro of cars and trucks during business hours, but could also transform into pedestrian-only space for concerts or food festivals during busy weekends and for special events. Ultimately, these standards helped create a framework that encourages a vibrant street life through the incorporation of wide sidewalks with enhanced paving, for added safety pedestrian crossings with enhanced paving and curb bulb-outs, closely spaced street trees that aid in providing shade, pedestrian scale lighting that provide getting dark safety, and multiple seating opportunities for resting and other people watching.
15. Lake Highlands Town Center Landscape | GFF Architects
Lake Highlands is understood for being a robust, well established neighborhood with a robust passion for a real, central gathering space. Lake Highlands Town Center could be a 70 acre development that’s envisioned as being this central space. In conjunction with O’Brien Architecture and located at two major arterial streets, GFF Planning was tasked with developing the landscape concepts for the latest addition to the Lake Highlands Town Center Development. Located amongst the gentle, rolling hills that may be found throughout Lake Highlands, GFF Planning developed an Austin hill country inspired landscape that’s built off of a plant palette of native plants and stone, but is meant in an exceedingly more refined, urban framework. Within the central plaza space, broad curved seats and water feature walls provide restful seating opportunities for shoppers. As well, space was reserved within the central plaza space for multiple outdoor dining spaces. Shoppers also will be greeted by numerous trees planted within the car parking zone that shade the pavement and work to scale back the urban heat island effect, wide covered sidewalks with varying kinds of enhanced paving, and multiple seating opportunities scattered throughout the location.
