GFF University

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Glass Technology that Can Bring Value to Your Building

Developers typically find that one of the most expensive components of a ground up construction is the glazing systems. Natural light gives life to a building. Without it there’s no life and no demand for space. Insulated glazing was invented in 1865, and the technology slowly started to make its way into commercial development in the 1930’s, becoming commonly available in the 50’s. Glass has a major impact on the experiential quality of a space and is often a primary component of the overall design concept. Glass technology has shaped and repeatedly redefined architecture, and its most recent evolution offers a broad spectrum of options.

Post-Pandemic Landscapes

As a lasting result of the ‘Shelter-In-Place’ orders, our greenspaces may possess increasingly vital roles in our daily lives. As outdoor spaces continue to fill expanded roles, they also may adapt and change.

Renovation and Historic Preservation for Education

One of the most common triggers for planning and design projects in K-20 education is that existing campus facilities and resources no longer meet the needs of the institution. As education evolves to meet the needs of the twenty-first century, changes in pedagogy are driving changes in facilities for teaching at all grade levels, as…

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Decoding the Effects of COVID-19

A few weeks ago, we asked our clients, consultants, contractors, and friends of the firm to share their experiences during the current pandemic. We are excited to share our findings and some of the excerpts from our generous survey volunteers.

Church Design Post COVID-19

GFF Church Works is honored to have our recent COVID-19 discussion on the church re-entry process featured in the following publications. Please follow the links to learn more about strategies for re-entry and contact us if you would like to further discuss specifics for your facility! What Will Church Design Look Like in a Post-Pandemic…

Post-Pandemic Retail

COVID-19 has dramatically affected how we shop, dine, and are entertained. Retailers, restauranteurs, and theater operators are beginning to reopen in limited capacities and think about what the nature of these functions looks like in the future.

Post-Pandemic Housing

Being mindful of potential cost and spatial implications, these ideas outline and suggest realistic measures which may be taken to, logically but resourcefully, re-shape multifamily communities.

Should We Be Specifying Antimicrobials?

Research has shown that while antimicrobials do have some positive attributes, such as their ability to be used as a preservative in building materials, their presence in the built environment may create more harm than good. These days, the emergence of COVID-19 has made this question a more immediate concern. As states and local municipalities…

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Today’s Students Are Different – Is Your Housing?

THIS ARTICLE APPEARS IN THE MARCH/APRIL 2020 EDITION OF STUDENT HOUSING BUSINESS Student housing changes with each generation; we're in the middle of a generation shift. Most student housing has seen multiple generations on many campuses. Here's a look at the past three generations and how housing built for those generations will adapt to the…

Reducing Annual Operating Costs Through Good Design

Lucas Christian Academy Capital projects on school campuses face a significant challenge in accomplishing as much as possible with limited resources, but construction dollars represent only a small fraction of the total expenditures over the life cycle of a new school building. While cost of construction is certainly an important consideration, long-term building owners and…

Is a Flexible Classroom Right for You?

In last month’s post my colleague Jon Rollins discussed some of the considerations at the intersection of space planning, room utilization and building programming. In this post, we will look at an individual learning space and a few simple, but often overlooked, steps to maximize its use. The flexible classroom is often considered a space…

Quality vs. Quantity in Campus Space Planning

One of the most common client comments we hear in our campus planning practice is “there’s not enough space for ___”. While there may be legitimate deficits in certain types of campus space (more on that later), what we frequently discover though interviews and analysis is that it is not the amount of space that’s…

Sustainability: Solar Panels

written by Ashley Hall Ever thought about adding Solar panels to your home? Our own, Russell Hagg, Architect in the Dallas Interiors studio, answers some FAQ’s from his own experience: AH: What sparked your interest on installing solar panels for your house? RH: We wanted to find a way to reduce our electricity cost. AH:…

Carefree, Car-free

written by Jillian Brooks While the Dallas/Fort Worth metropolitan area ranks as one of the most congested urban areas in the country, employees at GFF are finding ways to get out of their cars and back into the City. GFFers have multiple ways of getting around, from the historic McKinney Avenue Trolley to the newly…

New Technology: Virtual Reality

written by Matt Blake Virtual Reality is an emerging trend that has exploded in popularity over the past few years. Millions of new headsets have been shipped all over the world; ranging everywhere from stand-alone systems of wired headsets that require multiple tracking cameras and a high powered computers to simply smart phones that slip…

KU Reception at GFF

GFF was honored to host a reception for the visiting students, alumni and staff from The University of Kansas. After visiting the Perot Museum with GFF’s Duncan Fulton, our guests enjoyed beverages and hors d’oeuvres, while catching up and talking all things architecture. Rock Chalk, Jayhawks!

Alta Strand Construction Site Tour

Recently the Womble studio took a tour of the Alta Strand construction site in the Dallas Design District. This 400 unit, 5-story wood framed multifamily residential project stretches nearly 1000 feet along Turtle Creek and an extension of the Trinity Strand Trail. The long linear site itself brought many challenges with access and layout, and efforts were…

Resilient Design

With the Rockefeller 100 Resilient Cities program, there is a newly acquired focus on Resilient Design. While Resilient Design is intuitively understood, there needs to be a clarification in the definition to truly understand the parameters of Resilient Design. According to the Resilient Design Institute, “Resilient Design is not any single concept or perspective. Resiliency…

A Campus for the Future

Rapidly expanding knowledge, faster communication with an increasingly wide audience, and evolving societal and learning needs will require that the twenty-first century school and university campus be more open, more flexible and more technology-enabled than ever before. One pedagogical trend driving this evolution in learning spaces is the shift from passive delivery to active learning…

Going Back to the 1st Grade

The first grade classes of Cottonwood Creek Elementary School are currently in the middle of a 2D and 3D shapes course, and who better to talk to about three-dimensional shapes in the real world than an architect! Following a trip the four classes took to the Perot museum earlier this week, I stopped by the…

Hooked – Value Engineering

GFF Principals David Farrell and Scott Sower gave a great GFF University presentation on Value Engineering yesterday. In the photo below, they explain how we must adapt our thinking during the course of a project as more becomes known about the budget. For those of you who don’t know David, his presentations are never without great…

T-Rex goes to the museum.

Just down the street from GFF is a dinosaur-sized mural by Douglas Rouse (completed in 2010). As you may know, GFF played a role in the Perot Museum project for many years and worked with architectural office Morphosis to complete the design. We thought you might like to know how tall T-Rex really is when…

The Backstory on the Perot

Can you believe the Perot Museum was a 16-year process?! Luckily for us, Duncan Fulton was around to document it ALL and today was kind enough to share a little background. GFF has been working with the Museum of Nature & Science since 1996, not exactly the age of the dinosaurs, but still a long…

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A Picture is Worth a Thousand Acres

We thought we would give you sneak peak of our poster for Larry‘s upcoming GFFU. Captured in their natural habitat are retired principal Bryce Weigand and Director of GFF Planning Brian Moore. We bet you didn’t know that site planning was so fun.