A famous quote from “Father of the National Parks” John Muir goes, “the mountains are calling, and I must go.” It epitomizes his zeal for the outdoors, along with his passion for preservation. People around the world felt this call when COVID-19 restrictions closed all indoor gathering spaces. As spring rolls into summer, we celebrate both the natural and created environments that nurture and feed our wellbeing. Indeed, the very concept of leisure is an important aspect of overall wellness. Therapists classify leisure into five domains – physical, social, emotional/psychological, mental/cognitive, and spiritual. Engaging in activities is helpful to maintain a sense of balance. PRISM clients have long recognized the benefits of leisure and have used renderings to promote their projects in several ways. Renderings and animations are a vital tool in capital campaigns to communicate the breadth and depth of the project. The same goes for community awareness campaigns when residents want to have a sense of connection to projects happening in their own backyard. Renderings are also helpful to obtain municipal approval, assuring proper use of public funds. What mountains are calling you?
Fly Ranch is the site of Black Rock City, the oldest and largest Burning Man celebration in the world. Land Art Generator Initiative, (LAGI), an international biennial design competition and the Burning Man Project partnered to hold a multi-disciplinary design challenge that would create the foundational infrastructure of the Fly Ranch. Developer, artist, and futurist Ty Eckley of KCTC, Inc. tapped PRISM to join a team submitting on the LAGI 2020 Fly Ranch competition. Architect Warren Johnson of Johnson Design Group, and graphic designer Phil Schmitt also contributed to this unique and exciting pursuit. The contest timeline was six months, with four months added due to the pandemic. Our team made a late decision to enter and had two weeks to compile an entry. The team’s intention to enter the contest was not about winning, but about creating a solution honoring the Burning Man spirit and practical enough to provide permanent event infrastructure for the next 50 years. The team treated this as an experiment to explore the long-term, net-zero design possibilities of a facility dropped into an inhospitable desert environment. Every August, Black Rock City is briefly home to 70,000 people in northern Nevada, gathering to celebrate Burning Man. In 1997, Black Rock City moved to Fly Ranch, a 3,800-acre property just north of the event site. Over the following 20 years, people imagined building a permanent home for Burning Man’s temporary community at Fly Ranch. As Burning Man embarks on a 2030 plan to make the annual event at Black Rock City sustainable, Fly Ranch will serve an important role in that effort. Fly Ranch’s unique geological features include dozens of hot and cold springs, three geysers, hundreds of acres of wetlands, dozens of animal species, and more than 100 types of plants. The land has a 10,000+ year history of stewardship by the Numu (Northern Paiute) and Newe (Western Shoshone) people. On the festival site, Burning Man brings together many diverse visions and skills. The culture is notable for:
Part bank, part business center, and all customer-centric, the new Cy-Fair Federal Credit Union (FCU) Administrative Offices and Financial Center in northwest Houston is designed to meet the technologically advanced ways consumers bank today. This reimagined center is the result of an extensive overhaul of an existing branch location. It also indicates the greater lengths banks are going to serve their communities and the broader national economy. PRISM worked with MG Architects to produce several interior and exterior renderings. Inside, the customer experience begins with a Hospitality Counter offering drinks and pastries, and a Technology Bar with wireless charging and a high-definition video wall. New Interactive Teller Machines (ITMs) have large video screens to connect members to associates in real-time and virtually face-to-face. Private consultation rooms are available for individualized services and a commercial member desk is dedicated to business customers. The back office areas feature open plan workstations, a consolidated call center for general calls and ITM services, and expanded training rooms. The updated exterior features a 3-story lightwell displaying the Cy-Fair FCU branding. Projects such as this demonstrate the vital role community banks play. Past Chair of the Federal Reserve Ben Bernanke cites these small financial institutions as critical economic engines. Local banks typically have close ties to the surrounding community and a better understanding of their needs than national banks. “Such lending helps foster the economy by allowing businesses to buy new equipment, add workers, or sign contracts for increased trade or services. Those effects are felt at a local level and may appear at first glance to be fairly modest, but when you multiply these effects across the thousands of community banks in the United States, you really see how the lending decisions they make help the broader national economy,” Bernanke reported to a trade publication.
This month, PRISM was invited to attend the 2021 Mandala World Business Conference. The weekend consisted of a motorcoach tour of their property in Wellington, Florida, the future home to a revolutionary new learning academy. Dr. George Hutchinson, Founder/CEO of the Mandala World Academy, shared his vision for the global K-12 platform and was an extraordinary host. Jessica Jemison-Williams, Dean of Education, delivered a scholarly segment on the teaching and learning systems and the various academies being offered at Mandala World Academy: Equestrian Academy, Neuroscience Technology Academy, Fine & Performing Arts Academy, Agriculture Academy, Bio-Architecture Academy, and a Bio-Energy Academy. Our team was honored to be invited to participate in the conference and play a role in the life-changing vision Dr. Hutchinson has cast.
It was a full three days, but while in Florida, the PRISM team also visited our client MSA Architects, Inc. at their office in Miami. We began working with MSA back in 2014 on their project, Pearl Flagler Village, located in Fort Lauderdale; Morgan Group, a Houston-based leader in upscale multifamily development, led the project. We took pictures of the completed 350-unit apartment community. Laureat, another premier high-rise in Fort Lauderdale by developer Greystar, stands tall near iconic Las Olas Boulevard and was another stop during our visit. PRISM worked with the award-winning team at MSA to produce renderings for both new developments and many others throughout Florida.
As the pandemic raged, new projects sprang up across Houston in 2020. HBJ’s annual Landmark Awards honors those that shape the look, feel, and image of our city. Jurors chose 52 finalists in 18 categories. Architecture firm Inventure had PRISM produce renderings for their Texas Hearing Institute, a finalist in the Medical category. Winners will be announced April 22nd during a live internet broadcast, open to the public.
Every March, Women’s History Month celebrates women in American history. In A/E/C, we recall pioneers like Louise Blanchard Bethune, the first female AIA member, and Ebby Halliday of Dallas called the “First Lady of Real Estate.” But did you know Hedy Lamarr had a historic role in engineering in addition to starring on the silver screen? Women remain grossly underrepresented in architecture and related fields. But NCARB, the entity responsible for architectural licensure, reported in 2020 that “although women remain underrepresented in the profession, the gap continues to close.” Thanks to more awareness of equity in the workplace, an emphasis on mentoring, and increasingly exposing STEM fields to girls at younger ages, the statistics are inching up. As an all-female team of working moms, PRISM routinely recognizes the role women can play in having successful careers in A/E/C and maintaining a happily balanced home life. Keeping the memory of these trailblazing women alive is one small way we recognize Women’s History Month!
In most American cities, and especially in Houston, streets are a means of getting from Point A to Point B by motorized transit. But in the past year, as work-from-home pervaded businesses, previously crowded urban streets became eerily devoid of cars. Streets and the areas adjacent to them soon became more active pedestrian zones. Restaurants and patrons embraced outdoor dining. Bike share programs saw increased ridership. Small musical ensembles were even able to perform on some outdoor sidewalks. These streetscapes achieved what many developers and designers have long realized; streets are fundamental public places that can easily foster daily human interaction. A well-designed streetscape improves the aesthetic quality and safety of the street, boosts economic growth, and promotes social activity and comfort of communities. The renderings, in the video, depict the power of streetscapes to not only communicate site access and proposed improvements to both the public and tenants, but to also provide a sense of the character, which defines each place.
Developer Saber Street recently broke ground on their newest project, a medical office building in Midland, Texas. The 2-year-old firm specializes in healthcare facilities, providing a full suite of services including development, property management, leasing, investment management, and consulting. PRISM provided the rendering used for pre-leasing and marketing; to date, the building is approximately 65% leased. Coulon Dental, a large multi-specialty dental clinic, is the anchor tenant. The new MOB, the Holiday Hill Medical Arts Center, was designed by Kaim Associates and is being built by Arch-Con Construction. The structural steel frame has composite steel deck-slabs and tilt-wall panels, making for a relatively quick construction schedule. The project broke ground in mid-January and is expected to be complete in September. The 2-story building totals almost 33,000 s.f. and features a double-height glass lobby accessed through a porte-cochere. The façade is primarily glass curtainwall capped with a stacked-stone skin on the building corners.
With almost 500,000 units under management, Greystar again claimed the top spot in the National Multifamily Housing Council’s 2020 Top 50 Manager’s list. And they show no signs of slowing down in 2021. The developer commissioned PRISM for interior view renderings to showcase one of their newest properties, Outlook Clear Creek Apartments, in Wheat Ridge, Colorado. Located mere miles west of Denver at the base of the Rocky Mountains, it has ample green spaces throughout and access to one of the area’s premier bike trails. The community is being developed by Evergreen Devco, Inc. and is part of an expanding Clear Creek crossing neighborhood, a 110-acre missed-use development located near the intersection of Interstate 70 and Highway 58. The apartments have open floor plans with plenty of windows to capture the fantastic views and are outfitted with modern finishes, large kitchen islands, and stainless-steel appliances. Residents will enjoy the amenities in the clubhouse, including billiards, a co-working lounge, a pet wash station, and a fitness center. Did you know that Denver enjoys more than 300 blue-sky days a year? That’s more than San Diego or Miami Beach! To take advantage of this, residents will have an outdoor game station, a kitchen and picnic tables, a fire pit, and outdoor pool with a hot tub, all with mountain views.
