Lyanne's picture

Living the Dream: 311 3rd Transformation

Following an extensive transformation of Lake|Flato’s office in downtown San Antonio, we are thrilled to be back together in a reinvigorated space designed to promote creativity, collaboration, and culture. Over the last few years, our internal design team has worked tirelessly to create a healthy, inclusive work environment that applies design principles that have defined our work for decades. The result is a flexible office designed for the modern workplace that connects people to the outdoors and to each other. With the building’s original bones on display, and through a design exercise of...
Mary Beth Lineberry's picture

Celebrating Nature, Place and Craft in Our New San Antonio Office

Since our founding in 1984, Lake|Flato has expanded to all floors and corners of our office at 311 Third Street in San Antonio. After committing to renovating our office into a healthy, high-performing, hybrid workplace, we decided to go against the grain of the building’s origins as a former car dealership and remove all parking and cars to create a community-centric outdoor living room. For a firm with a focus on sustainability, expanding our office meant removing rather than adding, and encouraging human and environmental health through outdoor amenities, connections to nature, and...
Dan Stine's picture

Using 3D People to Enhance Diversity of Enscape Visualizations and Client Communication

Ryerson Woods Education Center - exterior rendering
Every architectural visualization is a challenge in itself. For some projects, fidelity to style and detail is particularly important, while for others, authenticity in harmony with the surrounding environment is key. The talented team at Lake|Flato combines these components and brings the environmental aspect and the sustainability of the planned buildings even more into their Enscape renderings. For that reason, we are very happy to share the following guest post with you. Enjoy! Creating Enscape Visualizations The team uses various design technologies, from energy and daylight simulation...
Dan Stine's picture

Mixed Reality at Lake|Flato – Full Scale Holograms with the Microsoft HoloLens 2

Mixed Reality view of Lake Flato office remodel
Introduction During the architectural design process, Lake|Flato uses many techniques to convey our design solution to our clients. The options include hand sketched drawings, physical models, printed CAD drawings, real-time on-screen visualizations, virtual reality, and even augmented reality. The same is also true for our own office remodel, currently underway, here in San Antonio, Texas. This article will highlight our use of immersive mixed reality, which involves a full-scale hologram being positioned within our existing three-story building, used to experience the new office before the...
Nouran Abdelhamid's picture

Architecture to Connect: Egypt

Pyramids of Giza, Giza - c. 2589-2504 B.C.
The end of my 16 year long formal education was the best thing to happen to my appetite for knowledge. In November of 2020, I moved back to Cairo after a year long stay in San Antonio as a 'cultural and educational exchange visitor' to intern at Lake Flato. And boy was there a lot of culture and education to be exchanged. Working with the wonderful architects and designers at Lake Flato has taught me so much that I could have never learned in school. Beyond learning about the technical skills necessary to bring a design to fruition, it reinforced in my mind just how much of a connection the...
Sophia Razzaque's picture

A Look Inside Hotel Magdalena, the first Mass Timber boutique hotel in North America

Hotel Magdalena
Located in the heart of Austin’s South Congress neighborhood, the recently opened Hotel Magdalena is the first mass timber boutique hotel in North America. The mass timber wood structure honors the history of the site including the former 1950s Austin Terrace Motel – previously constructed of exposed heavy timber beams and columns in the mid-century modern aesthetic. The design team, including Lake|Flato, operator Bunkhouse Group and Ten Eyck Landscape Architects sought to reference this history and material aesthetic by creating warm, inviting structures. Scroll down for a look inside Hotel...
lewismcneel's picture

Thermal Imaging at the Knox College Whitcomb Art Center

Congratulations to the Knox project team for delivering the first newly constructed campus facility since the early 70's and important part of the Knox College commitment to liberal arts education. "Our new building is a delight...designed for teaching multiple art disciplines, the abundance of light-filled open work areas, studio space, and a gallery-like two-story critique hall enhance student learning and imagination. It also directly impacts our effectiveness as teachers and promotes student’s ability to think of themselves as artists, not just students.” - Mark Holmes, Associate...
sunniediaz's picture

How Will Confluence Park Be Constructed?

Lake|Flato’s collaboration with the San Antonio River Foundation (SARF), Rialto Studio, Andrew Kudless of Matsys , Architectural Engineers Collaborative (AEC), CNG Engineers, and Spawglass Contractors has magically evolved the vision of Confluence Park into a pavilion that responds to and enhances the surrounding natural environment. While capturing and treating its own water, the petals of the pavilion at Confluence Park are meant to inspire its occupants and offer an interactive learning experience about the San Antonio River and its watershed. Since the early phases of our design process,...
lewismcneel's picture

TreeHouse Breaks Ground on New Dallas Store

I recently attended the groundbreaking for Treehouse's new Dallas store. A year ago I knew I was in for a fun project when TreeHouse's CEO Jason Ballard asked us to produce “the most beautiful store in the world,” and then asked us for the world’s first net zero energy big box retail building, and then gave us some new Tesla technology to help make it all happen. Treehouse Inc. , also dubbed Home Depot for Hipsters, is on a serious mission to make some wonderful things happen in the world. They are a home improvement store that sells quality, sustainable building materials which support human...
jsmith's picture

Field Report : Austin Central Library

To celebrate the large live oak that was craned up to the 6th floor green roof reading garden at the Austin Central Library today here are some recent images of the construction progress at the Austin Central Library paired alongside the corresponding renderings. To see previous images click here. The Austin Public Library also has photos here. Here are a few more fun facts: Square Feet of Library: 240,000 Date Voters Approved bond: Nov 2006 Size of Revit Model in Megabytes: 450.1 Concrete Cubic Yard Mat Slab Placement: 10,000 Number of Gallons the Rain Water Cistern Can Hold: 373,390 View on...

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