Last week, I had the opportunity to attend and present at the annual Texas Society of Architects (TxA) conference, hosted in Houston, Texas.
It was another great TxA conference. In this post I will share some of my experiences and highlight Lake|Flato people, projects, and sessions:)
The annual gathering of Texas architects was held last month in Houston, Texas. I wanted to share a little about the conference, including my session, amazing keynotes, and Lake|Flato featured projects and people!
The conference hotel I stayed at, Marriott Marquis Houston, may have had a massive Texas-shaped lazy river!!!
The venue was the downtown Houston Convention center.
Frank Harmon, FAIA Keynote
A beautiful storyteller sharing a magical life with his late wife and the home they designed together. Be sure to check out his blog: https://nativeplaces.org/
Klein Dytham Architecture Keynote
One of the keynote presentations was by a Japanese architecture firm (the firm's founding partners are originally from London)... they did not mention this in their presentation, but they are the creators of Pecha Kutcha! Astrid Klein and Mark Dytham from Klein Dytham Architecture. They do beautiful work.
AIA 2024 Gold Medal Recognition
Ted Flato and David Lake were recognized during the first keynote for winning the national AIA Gold Medal, the highest award an architect can win in the US.
TxA Associate of the Year Award
One of the best things about working at Lake|Flato is working with amazing and talented people. My colleague Kate Sector was recognized for being one of those amazing people, winning the TxA Associate of the Year award!
Quick photo op with David and Kate...
Education Sessions
The conference is packed with many great sessions. I mention a couple others below, but here are the two Lake|Flato led.
Ted and David presented the legacy of Lake|Flato...
I presented on lighting design...
Tours
TxA offered several tours during the conference. My colleagues Sunnie Diaz and Cameron Patterson give an amazing tour of our Houston Zoom projects, along with the client and consultants.
So, yes... in addition to designing the only NBA stadium that also hosts a massive annual rodeo (mentioned in David and Ted's firm legacy talk), the firm has also designed a penguin exhibit!!!
Cameron offering a sneak peek at our mass timber project at the Zoo called Jack's Cafe.
Another tour featured a Lake|Flato project (designed with BNIM) called the Buffalo Bayou Partnership. The entire first floor of this adaptive reuse project is designed to flood. The tour was led by Catherine Callaway, AIA from Kirksey (she worked on the project while at BNIM previously).
The last tour also included another project (Lake|Flato was not involved in) the AIA Houston office which, which is a new space... also designed to flood. Be sure to click to enlarge the project board below... this is an amazing design! This tour was led by Rusty Bienvenue, executive director of AIA Houston.
The AIA Houston space currently has an exhibit on Houston redlining. The exhibit is organized to follow each chapter in the book, The Color of Law by Richard Rothstein (be sure to check out his latest book, Just Action). By the way, Mr. Rothstien was the keynote speaker for TxA in 2022... one of the best keynotes I have ever seen.
The Houston Redlining exhibit was created by Gregory Benjamin, an architect at Page, who also presented on the topic (photo below) at the conference. His session was titled Crossing the Line: How Redlining Had Affected Houston's History.
President's Party
The annual president's party is a fun event. People in the photo not mentioned previously... Maryam Singery (UTSA) and Dan Hart, FAIA, PE.
Selfies
Here are several selfies I managed to grab during the conference:)
Lakisha Ann Woods, CEO of AIA national
Torrey Carleton, Executive Director at AIA San Antonio
Italia Aguilera, Exigo architects
I will end with the first selfie I took... with none other than the TxA 2024 president, Derwin Broughton, AIA, NOMA, NCARB, WELL AP
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