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Prestigious Architecture Society Recognizes Notable Fort Worth Architecture Firm

September 23,2022

See full Fort Worth Magazine article by Brandi Addison here.

A local architecture firm has continued to build a big name for itself across the greater state and nation.

The prestigious Texas Society of Architects has recognized the Fort Worth-based Bennett Partners for its design work on the Center for Transforming Lives, an outreach organization that serves the city’s most underserved communities.

“We are certainly gratified for this recognition, but we are even more pleased to be able to help CTL in the important work they are doing for those in our community who are in need,” Bennett Partners CEO and principal architect Michael Bennett said in a release.

Bennett Partners launched the project as a pro-bono study, in partnership with the Center, to determine the plausibility of adaptively reusing the facility — once a 1960s department store — for its organization.

Under Bennett Partners’ redesign plan, the two-story store will undergo significant changes that include a landscaped entry courtyard, a landscaped parking lot with a “park-like connection” from the nearby bus stop and outdoor shaded play areas. According to the release, the facility will also provide classroom space for children enrolled in the Head Start program, an early-start education program that promotes school readiness within young children — ages 5 and younger — in low-income families

Outside, the firm will convert the majority 13-acre site into greenspace that serves as a location for neighborhood activities and events.

In addition to the recent recognition from TSA, Bennett Partners also received a 2021 Studio Award from the American Institute of Architect’s Fort Worth Chapter for the project at the Center.

Over the years, Bennett Partners has received dozens of accolades and awards for its design work. Among its other notable adaptive reuse projects in the city: The Fort Worth Stockyards Horse and Mule Barns, Sundance Square, Hotel Dryve and the Foch Warehouses.