The Deep Ellum neighborhood and its rich music and arts culture has always been an integral component of the Dallas urban environment.
The railroad-hub removal and the infrastructural addition of I75 in the 1960’s modified that integration and deactivated many highway-adjacent sites. Epic 1 infills one of those sites reestablishing a connection to the Dallas urban core and defining a new gateway for Deep Ellum. It creates formal and experiential transition between the low-rise, pedestrian scale of Deep Ellum’s historic fabric and the dense, high-rise verticality of downtown Dallas.
Programmed with ground-floor retail, urban court, parking garage, speculative office floors, and occupant amenities, the building is composed of four shifted volumes influenced by the confluence of Dallas, Deep Ellum, I-75, and the surrounding fabrics’ varying scales. Together the shifted volumes identify and celebrate the transition of scales. They offer shaded moments from the summer sun and create balcony spaces with views on all sides.
They address the urban core establishing a rooftop garden atop the parking volume which reestablishes the ground plane above the height of the adjacent elevated highway. At the ground level across from the adjacent DART Rail station, the form is carved to create an urban court that pulls the active streetscape/traveler through the site. At night the underside of the volumes’ shifts illuminate, providing a beacon for Deep Ellum’s rich nightlife and accentuating the projects’ transitional position.
All the information about how to enter the 2020 WAN Awards is here.
We are very happy to offer support so please don’t hesitate to email Georgia, WAN Awards Event Coordinator with any questions at Georgia.Baily@haymarket.com.
Last year more than 40 countries took part in the WAN Awards with strong showings from Europe, the Americas and Asia-Pacific. And we saw some truly outstanding projects, take a look at the winners from last year here.