Foster Gunter

• 3rd Year Architecture Student at Louisiana Tech University

For many people, summer time means happy holidays with leisure and pleasure, relaxation and having a good time with friends and family. This talented young man, chose to spend his summer break away from Louisiana Tech University and all things architecture studio to invest in his career with hands-on professional practice in the real world of Architecture. All summer long, Foster Gunter has been thrown into so many aspects of this career, from field measurements, cad drawings, scanning countless pages of ‘very old’ drawings, to creating fun and inspiring 3-D renderings. We wish him well as he heads back to Tech for his 3rd year of Architecture school. We will never forget the coconut chair!!

This is some great footage of the new Calvary Baptist Church Worship Center as it nears completion.

About Calvary Baptist Church Worship Center

In the wake of a member survey and professional led study to assess long-range needs and project program growth, Calvary Baptist Church of Alexandria, Louisiana established a goal to develop and construct a new 1,500 seat Worship Center to meet the church’s increasing spatial requirements for joint worship services. The functional program for the new Worship Center, in addition to the 1,500 seat auditorium, includes an expansive lobby, choral rehearsal suite, satellite bookstore, staff offices, video studio, audio studio, and broadcast mixing control room.

The new Worship Center will incorporate features, including removable choir risers, that allow flexibility of use between traditional and contemporary worship programs; and provide a large, expansive platform for theatrical productions. In addition, the orientation of the Worship Center, on the existing Calvary campus, was selected to enhance the pedestrian mall spine that interconnects current choral, worship, fellowship, activity, and educational spaces. The new lobby, when complete, will not only serve as the connector between the new Worship Center and existing pedestrian mall, but will also provide a much needed overflow and expansion of Calvary’s fellowship hall.

Calvary Baptist Church Worship Center

During most years the speakers for the Celebrate Architecture design symposium come from all over the country, but this year we kept things more neighborly by reaching out to architects from Texas, Mississippi, and for the first time, Louisiana. It was another great gathering for the annual all-day event held in Baton Rouge, with over 200 AIA Louisiana members converging at the Shaw Center for the Arts.

We were happy to host Steve Dumez the Director of Design of the New Orleans-based architectural studio Eskew+Dumez+Ripple, who recently won the national AIA’s 2014 Architecture Firm Award; Juan Miró and Miguel Rivera of Miró Rivera Architects out of Austin (Juan and Miguel pictured above with moderator, Doug Ashe); and Anne Marie Decker of Duvall Decker Architects based in Jackson, Mississippi. This year’s symposium was focused around the idea of transformative architecture and how each of the speakers’ firms reconciled the cultural and environmental conditions of a region, local building traditions, and constraints into innovative architecture that transforms a place. The speakers did not disappoint, and shared several projects that exceeded mere conditional responses and were inspirational in both scope and commitment.

Doug Ashe served as moderator and continues to organize the event on behalf of AIA Louisiana. Mike Nichols designed the event media, marketing materials, and coordinated the production of the presentations.

We recently received the news that, along with our frequent collaborators at Tipton Associates, we’re going to be designing the new digs for some of the smartest students in the state. The state supported Louisiana School for Math, Science, and the Arts (LSMSA) draws some of the top students from across the state through a competitive admissions process to complete their final two or three years of high school.

In addition to housing 360 students, the new residence hall will be so much more . . . a home away from home for its residents, that also supports their academic pursuits and builds community. We look forward to the challenge of meeting the aspirations of the LSMSA family with this important addition to the campus.

More to come.

LSMSA website

We’re happy to announce that we’ll be working with Louisiana Tech to develop the long term vision of university’s campus. Ashe Broussard Weinzettle Architects joined renowned planning firm Sasaki Associates of Boston and Tipton Associates to form the team that was chosen by Louisiana Tech University from a distinguished list of planning firms to develop the Campus Master Plan.

The team will provide a complete assessment of existing campus facilities and infrastructure and, combined with stakeholder participation, establish a framework for future campus development of the university. We look forward to working with President Les Guice, administration, staff, students, and alumni to establish a unified long term vision for Louisiana Tech University.

We’re happy to announce that Jamie Price has joined our staff for the summer as an intern. Jamie recently completed his second year in the architecture program at Louisiana Tech University. In addition to pursuing his architectural studies, Jamie is an active member of Alpha Gamma Rho fraternity, where he serves as an executive member of the counsel.

A central Louisiana native, Jamie was first introduced to architecture after his high school art teacher suggested the potential career path to him after observing that all he painted was houses and buildings. He may have been onto something.

We look forward to introducing Jamie to the process of how design work moves through the office, combined with the occasional fun experience of “field verification” in the heat of summer.