Dallas Sprouts Green City Block Downtown

Dallas Sprouts Green City Block Downtown
Designed by European architects and led by Central Dallas CDC, new development will transform city hall parking lot into sustainable urban hillside

Dallas, Texas November 23, 2009 — Today, Urban Re:Vision and the Central Dallas Community Development Corporation announced that Forwarding Dallas has been selected as the winning design from Re:Vision Dallas, an international design competition. The challenge, to transform a vacant inner-city block behind City Hall into a carbon-neutral community, drew hundreds of entries from top architecture firms and city planners in 14 countries worldwide. Forwarding Dallas is the product of a collaboration between Portuguese-based architectural firms Atelier Data and Moov, and will run off the grid, acting as a working model of sustainability for cities around the globe. Ground breaking is scheduled for early 2011.
A spiritual space, gymnasium, caf(C) and exhibition space are also planned to accommodate various lifestyles. There is a temporary accommodation center as well as a daycare center designed for both children and the elderly.
Last May, three winners and three honorable mentions were selected from hundreds of entries. During the months since, Urban Re:vision and the Central Dallas CDC worked with a cadre of pro-bono executives provided by The Real Estate Council Foundation who have done extensive work on the proposed designs, including site analysis, creation of trial proformas, engineering and architectural reviews and estimates of construction costs for all three of the winning designs. During the first two weeks of November, each of the three winners flew into Dallas for additional discussion.
All three of the design teams impressed us, both with the quality of their designs and in the interviews, said John Greenan, Executive Director for Central Dallas CDC. Dallas would be a richer city to have the work of any of these architects represented, but as we went further into our review, we began to see the deep logic of the MOOV-Atelier Data design, Forwarding Dallas. Forwarding Dallas seemed to us to do the best job of incorporating concepts of sustainability into the foundation of the design.
Considerations for the selection included:

What I would love to see is an entire section of downtown notable for innovative, sustainable design–an attraction in the southern part of downtown balancing the Arts District in the northern part of downtown. There are already some interesting, green projects in The Cedars immediately to the south of downtown. A sustainable district that extends from downtown all the way into The Cedars neighborhood is a very reasonable possibility.
For more information on Urban Re:Vision, visit http://www.urbanrevision.com
For more information on Re:Vision Dallas, visit http://www.revision-dallas.com
About Urban Re:Vision: Re:Vision is a revolutionary initiative to create the prototype for an innovative, sustainable urban community. At the heart of the process is a series of contests generating visionary ideas for what can be in the design about urban space. For more information, visit www.revision-dallas.com.
About CDC: Central Dallas Community Development Corporation (Central Dallas CDC) is a grassroots, faith-based community development organization serving the needs of Dallas County, TX. Their mission is to build affordable housing, develop communities, and establish economic opportunities in Dallas, Texas. For more information, visit http://www.centraldallascdc.org.
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