A registered National Historic Landmark, Fair Park is the 227-acre home to the State Fair of Texas and various cultural institutions in Dallas, Tex. In 2020, Fair Park revised its masterplan to include a 14-acre Community Park and a parking garage. Designed by Gensler, the Fair Park Fitzhugh Parking Structure recently won the AIA Dallas Chapter Unbuilt Design Award.
The garage will have 1,650 parking spaces over five stories. In an attempt to design a large concrete parking structure that’s sensitive to its surrounding community, the team placed part of Community Park on top of the garage structure, making it an extension of the park.
To connect the park to the garage’s top deck, the design uses both earth berms and structural berms. On the surface of the north berm, an immersive outdoor experience includes a prairie landscape, viewing deck, shading canopies, shading platform, and rooftop event deck. With concessions and restrooms, the rooftop deck can be used for public and private events. Beneath the north berm lies 80,000 square feet of operational facilities for Fair Park and Community Park.
With a 47-foot ascent to the top of the garage, the project makes the structure’s height an asset for the park, offering views of the adjacent neighborhood, Fair Park, and downtown. It also creates a new, distinctive public space for Dallas. The project’s shape takes inspiration from the region’s limestone ridges and the park’s prairie-inspired landscape, blending and unifying the garage structure with its surroundings. The parking structure aims to incentivize wellness by encouraging people to walk rather than use the elevator.
On the Building Team:
Owner and developer: Fair Park First
Design architect and architect of record: Gensler
Associate architect: Moody Nolan
MEP engineer: DFW Consulting Group
Structural engineer: Ponce-Fuess Engineering
General contractor/construction manager: VCC and Con-Real
Parking consultant: WGI
Civil engineer: Pacheco Koch
![Fair Park Fitzhugh Parking](/sites/default/files/inline-images/Fair%20Park%20Fitzhugh%20Parking.jpg)
Related Stories
| Aug 11, 2010
Great Solutions: Products
14. Mod Pod A Nod to Flex Biz Designed by the British firm Tate + Hindle, the OfficePOD is a flexible office space that can be installed, well, just about anywhere, indoors or out. The self-contained modular units measure about seven feet square and are designed to serve as dedicated space for employees who work from home or other remote locations.
| Aug 11, 2010
8 Tips for Converting Remnant Buildings Into Schools
Faced with overcrowded schools and ever-shrinking capital budgets, more and more school districts are turning to the existing building stock for their next school expansion project. Retail malls, big-box stores, warehouses, and even dingy old garages are being transformed into high-performance learning spaces, and at a fraction of the cost and time required to build classrooms from the ground up.
| Aug 11, 2010
Fleet Library, Rhode Island School of Design
When tasked with transforming an early 1920s Italian Renaissance bank building into a fully functional library for the Rhode Island School of Design, the Building Team for RISD's Fleet Library found itself at odds with the project's two main goals. On the one hand, the team would have to carefully restore and preserve the historic charm and ornate architectural details of the landmark space, d...
| Aug 11, 2010
John Adams Courthouse
After more than a century without a substantial renovation, Old Suffolk County Courthouse, designed in Neo-Classical style by Boston's first city architect, George Clough, was overdue for a facelift. Enter the makeover team: Boston-based architects Childs, Bertman, Tseckares and general contractors Suffolk Construction/NER Construction Management.
| Aug 11, 2010
Lifestyle Hotel Trends Around the World
When the Rocco Forte Collection opens the Verdura Golf & Spa Resort in Sicily in early 2009, the 200-room luxury property will be one of the world's newest lifestyle hotels. Lifestyle hotels cater to guests seeking a heightened travel experience, which they deliver by offering distinctive—some would say avant-garde, or even outrageous—architecture, room design, amenities, and en...
| Aug 11, 2010
Special Recognition: Kingswood School Bloomfield Hills, Mich.
Kingswood School is perhaps the best example of Eliel Saarinen's work in North America. Designed in 1930 by the Finnish-born architect, the building was inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright's Prairie Style, with wide overhanging hipped roofs, long horizontal bands of windows, decorative leaded glass doors, and asymmetrical massing of elements.
| Aug 11, 2010
Giants 300 Index and Methodology
BD+C's annual Giants 300 list consists of U.S. firms that designed or constructed the largest volume of commercial, institutional, industrial, and multifamily residential buildings in 2008. Each spring, the editors survey the country's largest firms, ranking the top 300 across six categories: architects, architect/engineers, engineers, engineer/architects, contractors, and construction managers.
| Aug 11, 2010
Joint-Use Facilities Where Everybody Benefits
Shouldn’t major financial investments in new schools benefit both the students and the greater community? Conventional wisdom says yes, of course. That logic explains the growing interest in joint-use schools—innovative facilities designed with shared spaces that address the education needs of students and the community’s need for social, recreation, and civic spaces.
| Aug 11, 2010
The pride of Pasadena
As a shining symbol of civic pride in Los Angeles County, Pasadena City Hall stood as the stately centerpiece of Pasadena's Civic Center since 1927. To the casual observer, the rectangular edifice, designed by San Francisco Classicists John Bakewell, Jr., and Arthur Brown, Jr., appeared to be aging gracefully.
| Aug 11, 2010
9 Rooftop Photovoltaic Installation Tips
The popularity of rooftop photovoltaic (PV) panels has exploded during the past decade as Building Teams look to maximize building energy efficiency, implement renewable energy measures, and achieve green building certification for their projects. However, installing rooftop PV systems—rack-mounted, roof-bearing, or fully integrated systems—requires careful consideration to avoid d...