Barry Hand, AIA, Principal and Studio Director in Gensler’s Dallas office, discusses the relationship between thought leadership and successful urban design projects with UTSA students. Image: Ian Caine
Fifteen UTSA undergraduate students traveled to the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex with Associate Professor Ian Caine to assess the state of first-generation Edge Cities like Las Colinas, TX.
Fifty years after their emergence, how are Edge Cities performing? What possibilities exist to retrofit, renovate, or reimagine these environments? Could the retrofit of an Edge City like Las Colinas represent the next wave of American suburbia? If so, what would be the formal expression? What would be the program?
While visiting DFW, UTSA students stayed in Las Colinas and documented five sites across their design studio’s assigned twenty-acre site. The students also met with architects from Gensler, urban planners from Irving and Las Colinas, and visited iconic architectural and urban projects designed by Renzo Piano, I.M. Pei, Rem Koolhaas, Joshua Prince-Ramus, Thom Mayne, Louis Kahn, Tadao Ando, and Sasaki.
Last but not least was an obligatory studio dinner at the legendary Deep Ellum BBQ joint Pecan Lodge!