Valhalla Design Group » Not For Profit

Dallas Center for Architecture

tdatx — Wed, 29 Dec 2010 23:55:38 +0000

This submission won an honorable mention in a design competition the Dallas Center for Architecture (the Dallas AIA chapter office) held before they moved into their new space. Valhalla Design Group and Centerpoint Builders put together a full design and budget for this project. One of the judges approached us after the winners were announced and indicated that they had spent a lot of time reviewing the project: “your project was the only [finalist] projects that you could… you know…. DO.”

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CASA Parade of Homes – Stagehaus

tdatx — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 16:33:41 +0000

In collaboration with Centerpoint Builders, we helped build a playhouse for the CASA parade of playhouses. This particular house was part of a design competition put on by AIA Dallas’ Young Architects Forum. We had missed the actual competition, but was happy to build the project. Our winning design was by two talented people at Corgan, Assocaites, Anita Delgado and Lorena Holguin. We started a month behind, but somehow got the project out on time and without many changes. The final product looked great, even though I was very nervous that we would not make the deadline. But, everything went off without a hitch – other than the fact that this author got a major sunburn from working on it all day in 106 degree weather without any hint of shade in MultiFraming’ construction yard. Multiframing has done a lot of work with Centerpoint and procured much of the labor and materials for this project.

Day 2 - Structural Frame Complete

Day Four - Painting Frame.

Cedar Floor, Stained and ready for install

Stained Cedar Cladding Installation

Edge Detail

Exterior Complete!

Turf at Roof Terrace

The design is a play on the Wyly Theater, the new innovative theater which is part of the new AT&T Performing Arts Center in Dallas’ arts district. The house has a work area with a chalkboard, storage, as a desk, along with a stage (the large opening) for puppet shows and the like. An integrated ladder brings kids to the top of the eight foot tall playhouse, which is complete with a cool synthetic grass. The slats are all 1/2″ apart, so the whole playhouse is passively cool. On the last day, we all had out “lunch brak” inside the playhouse, as it was the only source of shade. We crammed five guys in there (including myself) and it was the coolest part of he day, other than my 5 trips to The Home Depot.

Finished product at Northpark

This can be seen through August 22nd. This installation is next to the west entrance of the mall (Northpark Blvd).

Special thanks to Tim Guerdy with Spring Valley Construction, Bob Borson, who helped put the AIA competition together, Anita and Lorena (mentioned above), Multiframing (Mike and crew, shown the first pictures), and of course Centerpoint Builders.

All of the playhouses are on display until August 22nd, and will be raffled off to benefit Dallas CASA. From their website: “CASA was founded in 1977, when a Seattle Superior Court Judge, amidst an overwhelmed child welfare system, grew concerned about making decisions on behalf of abused and neglected children in his court without enough information. He felt that more individualized attention and time for gathering important facts would produce better outcomes for the children. He decided to appoint community volunteers to work on behalf of the children in his court.”

Joppa Rodeo Project

tdatx — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 15:03:55 +0000

This is a project that we are working on with The Real Estate Council. It has been a little slow to get off of the ground, but we are finally picking um momentum and it looks like it will be a great project.

Concept Perspective

Form the site:

Our dream for this center is to provide a rodeo arena, horse trails, community gardens, a neighborhood park, and facilities where the youth can learn resiliency skills to resist negative peer influence. Please help make this vision a reality and help at-risk youth become “Ready and Forward”. Your contribution can make the difference in the lives to the youth of Dallas County. Through your generosity to the Joppa Rodeo project, you are giving several young people the opportunity to develop character through self empowerment.

jopparodeo.wordpress.com

United Way Regional Headquarters

tdatx — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 20:01:21 +0000

The United Way of Metropolitan Dallas raises over $50 million every year for local charities, yet had never before asked the community to contribute to a capital campaign for its own building. The United Way occupied its outdated facility for thirty-two years before moving in to its new facility. The six-story concrete frame building with integral parking is designed to complement the other architecture in the West End Historic District. It contains 40,000 sf of office space and 138 parking spaces. In addition, it can accommodate 13,000 sf of future retail/office expansion.

David Gunderson worked on this project while employed at Corgan, Associates.