The ORIX Parade of Playhouses benefiting Dallas CASA is 3 days away from officially being over for 2010. This coming Sunday at 4:00, kids will pull out the winning raffle tickets and 17 playhouses will start the process of moving to their new homes. I honestly want to win mine but I didn’t put any tickets in my own playhouse. We bought a ton and we gave them to my daughter to put in any of the playhouses she liked. While I was shaking hands and kissing babies, my wife and daughter went around putting our raffle tickets in the boxes at various playhouses. We met up afterward and my daughter told me (and this is a direct quote)
“We put 1 ticket in your playhouse so you wouldn’t feel bad”
Uhmm … great
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While it might look like I am poppin’ and lockin’ (which I am totally awesome at), I am actually walking up to get my award for being the CASA Parade of Playhouses event “Superhero”. Thank you, thank you – it’s for the kids…
The event this night was a thank you party for all the people who designed and built the playhouses along with sponsors and additional dignitaries associated with the event. I love a party and this was a good one. A movie theater was rented out and everyone got to screen the new Ramona & Beezus movie and afterwards there was a catered event with heavy appetizers from the Kona Grill. There were a lot of people at this event and it felt good to be a part of something special.
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Okay, so this was an article published in the paper for the event and for the most part, the portion I was interviewed for doesn’t make me sound too foolish … at least until the end where I am quoted with the pearl of wisdom:
“It’s pretty girly.”
Really? Is it pretty girly? … (I’m sure I said something far more clever and insightful)
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So the folks at CASA made a special award to present to the events Presenting Sponsor – ORIX USA Corporation. This was the group that requested me to design a Japanese inspired playhouse for them . This is the second year in a row I have designed the playhouse entry for ORIX USA and it’s a relationship that I am proud to have.
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You will probably remember from previous posts that my playhouse was built by my good friend and super contractor Barry Buford of Buford Custom Homes. Great guy and a great contractor – building this playhouse wasn’t a waste of his talents considering the cause but he can build full size houses pretty well in addition to playhouses.
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This was one of the winning entries from the Dallas Chapter AIA Young Architects Forum and was submitted by a former employee of mine. It is a nice entry and was made possible by a relationship I have with Tim Guedry at Spring Valley Construction. They agreed to underwrite the construction of 4 playhouses and made our design competition possible. Thanks Spring Valley *air high five*
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This was another of the winning Dallas Chapter AIA Young Architects Forum.
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This was another of the Dallas Chapter AIA Young Architects Forum entries – actually submitted by three young ladies from Trimble Tech High School in Fort Worth. I particularly like this entry because the color scheme and the simple but clear graphic nature of the design. When we were judging the entries, this one really stood out from the others. Good job Trimble Tech HS!
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This was the last of the playhouses that was one of the 4 selected for construction as part of the Dallas Chapter AIA Young Architects Forum. Getting it built for the budget established by the design guidelines made for certain challenges and is one of the more talked about playhouses that was constructed.
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I thought I would include a copy of the article that was published in a local Japanese newspaper. I can’t read Japanese (yet) but I’m pretty sure it said good things. We will have this event again next year so if you are interested in participating, send me an email and I will keep track of it and be in touch.
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