The Plaza at Solana is a Semi-Finalist in The Dallas Architecture Forum's Celebrating Inspired Design: "Looking Back, Looking Forward" Design Recognition in North Texas
The Dallas Architecture Forum’s Design Recognition Jury selected twenty-five projects of significance that have improved the social and urban fabric of North Texas, or have the potential to do so, since The Forum was founded twenty-five years ago.
“The jury was impressed by the quality of design and significant advances in the urban fabric of North Texas over the last twenty-five years (Looking Back). Their review of over one hundred sixty submissions resulted in a comprehensive list of projects to be recognized as Semi-Finalists.
The Plaza at Solana was one of twelve semifinalist projects recognized in the category of Looking Back (completed before 2021): Landscape, Urban Design and Public Space projects of the last 25 years. DELINEATOR is honored to be included in this group of outstanding projects. Congratulations to all of the finalists and winners.
“The Dallas Architecture Forum educates, enriches, and connects the North Texas community by presenting programs and events, creating experiences, and engaging global and local thought-leaders from all design fields to enhance how we live.”
Click here to learn more about the Dallas Architecture Forum’s Design Recognition and Jury.
DELINEATOR is thankful for all the Forum does to enhance the design community of Dallas and North Texas. Principal, Lauren Cantrell, PLA, ASLA, said, “When I first moved to Dallas in 2015, the programs and lectures of the Forum became my community. The colleagues and friends I made and incredible architects and designers I looked up to, inspired me to co-found DELINEATOR in 2017 and do the work that we do. To be recognized in this selection is an honor.”
About The Plaza at Solana: A Considerate Renovation Celebrating Light, Texture, Pattern + Movement with Flexibility for the Future
The Plaza at Solana is a courtyard renovation in The Town of Westlake, Texas, located within a larger campus originally designed in 1987 by Ricardo Legorreta, Peter Walker and Martha Schwartz. In 2012, in a transition away from a single-tenant campus, a renovation was completed that removed several of the larger architectural space-framing elements surrounding the courtyard and left the landscape over-exposed and uninviting. The design team re-imagined the courtyard to serve the current and future multi-tenant uses of the Plaza at Solana. The approach unpacks the original design intent using a similar design language as Peter Walker – legible forms expressed at the landscape scale and used in repetition. The design team sought to apply this architectural language to the landscape in such a way that it defines human-scaled, texture-rich spaces for people to occupy while remaining protected from the sun.
The original design is shown to the left, a 2012 Renovation in center, and the 2020 renovation by DELINEATOR on the right.
The interplay of light, texture, and form help create spaces that people feel comfortable viewing from and are compositionally interesting to view toward. This reinterpreted design language creates a new form of complexity and order in a user-focused approach. The result is a multi-layered, multi-functional co-working and event plaza that complements the adjacent tenants and welcomes the community of Westlake.
The original design intent was for the buildings and landscape to create a unified composition that emphasized long, axial site lines and landscape voids using plantings, fountains, site walls, and specimen trees to reinforce the forms of the arcades and create spaces for people to comfortably gather outside of these view lines. The original design was notable for the integration of Legorreta’s buildings with the minimalist landscape gestures of Peter Walker that exemplified the elements that Walker borrowed from the art movement: simple legible volumes and forms. Over time, the sum of the architectural and site revisions removed many of these elements to open views and increase movement to retail tenants. To ensure long-term success and adoption by its community, the design team took a careful and considerate approach to look forward while also acknowledging the site’s post-modern history.
The design approach and constructed Plaza at Solana has been well-received and commended by the Town staff, the Mayor of Westlake and the Client. The Town Planner, who has become a champion of preserving the architecture of Solana as a unique asset for the community, has complemented our team's sensitivity to the original design, including celebrating some of Legorreta’s colorful palette.
The Design
The cloister is extended from the extents of the original courtyard to encompass the plaza and creates new spaces for gathering.
The bosque redefines the cloister edge as a formal planting extension of the architecture, using the 14’ dimension of the arcades as the measure of the tree planting.
The central lawn reintroduces the geometric void from the original design by using simple forms and minimal grade change.
The mall connects the original cloister to the extended space and defines three unique sitting areas - the central lawn at the bosque, the existing live oak, and as adjacent seating near the existing restaurants. The mall reuses existing seat walls to create a visual connection between the courtyard and the cloister space.
The team collaborated closely with Mitchell Garman architects on the pavilions which create a lightness that is distinct from the existing building mass. Their 3-Form colored panels are a surprising homage to the spectacle of the colorful buildings and landscape (prairie wildflowers) of the original design while creating a changing texture and pattern throughout the day. The subtle shade provides a transition from the deep architectural shade to the dappled grove out to the full sun at the central lawn.
Equity
The project aims to increase public access through the creation of a multi-functional plaza that focuses on gathering, activities, and leisure. The original design intent implemented a formal strategy that redefined spatial perception via repetition and human scaled elements while the reinterpretation pushes this concept while purposefully focusing on user experience. While the spaces are connected to adjacent retail and office uses, they also have their own definition allowing the community to use and program the spaces. This approach produces a series of spaces that are highly integrated but allow for broader ownership of spaces that are outside of the architectural program.
The plaza is meant to comfortably support daily use through the week by the office tenants, hotel visitors and patrons of the new restaurant space. The pavilion and integrated seating is equipped with electrical outlets and wi-fi to support outdoor co-working. The durability of the design, however, also allows for larger, community-scaled events such as markets, yoga, summer concerts, and education. The design of the renovation for the Plaza at Solana was commended by the Client, City staff, and Mayor as an important space that can be flexible to accommodate a growing community and development in the future.
Sustainability/Resilience
The planting palette utilizes native, drought tolerant species to provide a low maintenance landscape that can endure the extremes of a North Texas climate. The design team also carefully orchestrated the construction process to save a large existing live oak as well as the surrounding pines on site. They sourced 8” caliper native Cedar Elms early on in the design development phase from a North Texas tree farm that were field dug and delivered to the site.
The plaza also utilizes existing structures, including the seat walls to minimize material waste.
Approximately 85% of the existing brick pavers were re-incorporated into the new plaza by careful intermixing to blend into the existing adjacent plaza.
The soils were designed to meet the requirements of the plant material grouping’s particular water usage to minimize excess water waste. Permeable surfaces were incorporated to define the area surrounding the circular lawn and acting as a textural transition to the decomposed granite of the grove that allows for rainwater to percolate into the ground. Extensive adjustments to the grading of the plaza and sub-slabs created more efficient water flow and increase permeability. The renovation reduced the lawn area by 70%, further increasing water conservation.
