Belton, Texas – The University of Mary Hardin-Baylor has selected GSC Architects of Austin to design a new building for the university’s Scott & White College of Nursing. GSC brings many years of experience to the project, having played a leading role in the design of hospitals and educational projects at colleges and universities.
The architectural firm most recently completed work on the Texas A&M Health Science Center in Round Rock, which is focused on the training of medical students, and the first phase of the Austin Community College Round Rock Campus, which included a state-of-the-art building for the college’s nursing and radiology programs.
For the past five years, GSC Architects has been host to participating IIDA Student Members during IIDA's Annual Student Mentoring Week. This year was no different. GSC hosted three participating students for one day on February 23rd. Students were able to shadow our designers, of varying experience levels, to seek out answers to their questions on the Interior Design/Architectural industry from the student's perspective.
Julie Zitter, IIDA, Director of Interiors, Sr. Associate at GSC Architects, assisted in establishing this program with IIDA with the passing of her first Mentor, Linda Lloy Hack, in Boston, MA. Ms. Hack was a huge advocate of the power of mentoring younger designers. A fund was established in her name, followed by the pairing of the Fund to the Mentoring Week in 2002. Students are able to collect $1,000. if their summary essay of their day is selected.
GSC Architects strives to Cultivate Community in hosting professional organization events, including ones that strengthen the future designers of our industry.
GSC at USGBC Panel Discussion
Wednesday, 23 February 2011 11:16
USGBC Balcones Chapter - Mass Wall Presentation
GSC President Tom Cornelius will be one of the featured panelists at the USGBC discussion on mass walls.
Event Details:
February 23, 2011 06:00 PM - 09:00 PM
Austin City Hall, Council Chambers, 301 W 2nd St., Austin, TX 78701
On Friday, Jan 21st, GSC Architects attended the AGC Awards (Associated General Contractors) as a guest of Solis Constructors. Solis won an Outstanding Construction Award for the CH-47 Aircraft Maintenance Hangar at Fort Hood. Congratulations to Solis, and our design team - Paul Meyer and Renu Razdan!
Construction Update for Taylor ISD's New High School
Written by Marcus Gibbon, Construction Administration Team Member, GSC Architects
The month of December has been a very productive month for the construction of Taylor High School even with all the holidays. Before the cold weather started, there was a strong push to get a large portion of the building in the dry. This allowed for a majority of the academic areas to receive gypsum board and have been prepared for texture. Exterior framing has begun in the Career and Technology areas and the Boys and Girls Athletic areas and interior framing are soon to follow.
Taylor High School Construction made the front page of the Taylor Daily Press on January 4, 2011 as one the Top Stories of 2010.
Interior Design at GSC Architects
Written by Julie Zitter, Director of Interiors, Sr. Associate, GSC Architects
Thoughtful design starts with thoughtful processes.
As Director of Interiors at GSC Architects, I am often asked to present the benefits of integrating interior design into the architectural design process at the project's initiation. GSC Architects prides itself on creating project solutions that elevate our clients' vision of success. Integration happens on all levels, including programming, or the first phase of the design process. We take our clients through an intimate programming process to truly understand how they work. In touring their spaces, while in full-use, and performing ethnographies, we can start to experience their adjacencies and needs for a truly integrated design approach. This exposure gives us first-hand knowledge of their culture. This exercise then gets woven to help shape the ultimate Design Concept.
GSC Architects’ “Roller CANster” design was part of the third annual Canstruction event benefiting Capital Area Food Bank. Teams from around the Austin area had eight hours to build large-scale structures out of aluminum cans. GSC teamed with SpawGlass Constructors & Jaster-Quintanilla to design a roller coaster made of cans. The structure contained two 360 degree loops and peaked at just over 7 feet tall. Congratulations to the Roller Canster team for receiving honorable mention from the jurors!
GSC Architects Awarded Round Rock ISD Westside Transportation Center
GSC Architects was awarded a new project at Round Rock ISD's December Board Meeting. The Westside Transportation Center, located near SH 45 & FM 620, will service 200 buses and district vehicles with a 6 to 8 bay transportation repair center, parking for 250 personal vehicles, a fueling station, and a bus wash rack. The 14,500 SF facility will also house a transportation administration office area with a break room and training area. GSC Architects will design this new facility to meet LEED Silver or higher certification.
Lead by GSC Principal, Beth Guillot, the project's design phase will begin in January 2011 with an estimated occupancy date of July 2012.
What does Sustainable Design mean to GSC Architects?
Written by Jenny Heim, LEED AP, GSC Architects G3 Chair
“Sustainable design”, “green building”, “energy efficient design”; there are many names for the Green Building movement but GSC Architects has achieved the challenge of balancing function, comfort and energy since the firms' creation in 1978. It is inherent to GSC Architects’ past and current design process to design intelligent, efficient and beautiful buildings with the needs of the client as a priority. But our process does not merely begin and end at design – it extends from the beginning of a relationship with our client to post-occupancy.
New Taylor High School has been moving along at a great pace. Over the past month, steel has been erected in the Fine Arts wing, Kitchen, Career and Technology Area and the Boys and Girls Athletic Areas. The academic areas are in the dry including the commons. CMU masonry is ongoing, while brick masonry has started at the gym with the academic areas to follow. Reinforced poly has been placed over window openings to help with dry-in as well as with wind during the colder months.
For the interior, gypsum wall board is being placed on levels 1 and 2 of the academic areas, exposed round ducts have been hung in the library, science lab utilities have been coordinated for the pedestal tables and Daikin VRVs are soon to be installed.
Leading Austin Architectural Firm Undergoing Transition
Principals in the Austin-based architectural practice previously known as Graeber, Simmons & Cowan have renamed the firm GSC Architects. The company also has relocated its offices from the downtown area to Barton Oaks Plaza at the intersection of Bee Cave Road and MoPac.
President Tom Cornelius said the new name recalls the firm’s 32-year heritage in Austin and is not unlike the initials by which many people have known the practice in the past.
“We also have unveiled a fresh graphic identity for use with our new name in the new location,” said Cornelius, “but what is not changing is our commitment as professionals in architecture and interior design to helping clients work effectively and collaboratively in their built environments.”
Cornelius has been with the firm since the 1980s and has served as President since January 2008, when he succeeded Al Simmons, who was one of three founding principals. A second co-founder, civic leader Tommy Cowan, retired from the firm at the end of 2009. The third co-founder, widely known design architect David Graeber, died earlier this year after being retired from the firm for a number of years.
Serving with Cornelius today as principals and shareholders in GSC Architects are Beth Guillot (Learning Environments – K-12), Joe LaRocca (Healing Environments – Healthcare, and Working Environments - Commercial and Interior), Paul Meyer (Working Environments – Technology and Government) and Larry Moseley (Learning Environments – Higher Education).
