Dallas Architecture Forum presents Jason Roberts, Feb. 29 - 7 pm at Magnolia Theatre February 29, 2012

The Dallas Architecture Forum is pleased to announce that Jason Roberts, co-founder of Better Block, will speak Wednesday, Feb. 29 at Magnolia Theatre, 3699 McKinney Ave. in Uptown Dallas. Season Benefactor is Briggs-Freeman Real Estate. The Spring Series Benefactors are Jackson Walker LLP and Rogers O'Brien Construction Company.
Tickets are $20 per lecture for general admission and $5 for students (with ID). Tickets can be purchased at the door before the lecture. Dallas Architecture Forum members receive free admission to all regular Forum lectures as a benefit of membership, and AIA members can earn one hour of CE credit for each lecture. For more information, visit www.dallasarchitectureforum.org, email [email protected] or call 214-764-2406.
Jason ROBERTS
Opposite to the 'top down' concept of urban design is BETTER BLOCK, founded in Dallas' Oak Cliff by Jason Roberts and Andrew Howard. The Better Block project is a demonstration tool that temporarily re-visions an area to show the potential to create a walk-able, vibrant, neighborhood center. The idea and the charrettes to realize it have quickly spread to cities like Memphis, St. Louis, New York, and Boston. National media coverage includes NPR, the Washington Post, and the New York Times.
Jason Roberts is the President and founder of the Oak Cliff Transit Authority, originator of the Better Block Project and co-founder of the Art Conspiracy and Bike Friendly Oak Cliff. In 2006, Jason formed the non-profit organization, Oak Cliff Transit Authority, to revive the Dallas streetcar system, and later spearheaded the city's effort in garnering a $23 Million dollar TIGER stimulus grant from the FTA to help reintroduce a modern streetcar system to Dallas. In 2010, Jason organized a series of "Better Block" projects, taking blighted blocks with vacant properties in Southern Dallas and converting them into temporary walk-able districts with pop-up businesses, bike lanes, cafe seating, and landscaping. The project is now being duplicated across the nation, and in 2011, the American Society of Landscape Architects bestowed a National Honor Award to Team Better Block for its work while heralding the Better Block project as “a 21st -century version of what the Chicago World’s Fair did in 1893.”
http://www.BetterBlock.org
About the Dallas Architecture Forum
The Dallas Architecture Forum is a not-for-profit civic organization that brings leading architectural thought leaders from around the world to speak in Dallas and also fosters important local dialogue about the major issues impacting our urban environment. The Forum was founded in 1996 by some of Dallas’ leading architects, business, cultural and civic leaders, and it continues to benefit from active support and guidance from these citizens. The Forum fulfills its mission of providing a continuing and challenging public discourse on architecture and urban design in - and for - the Dallas area. The Dallas Architecture Forum's members include architects, design professionals, students and educators, and a broad range of civic-minded individuals and companies intent to improve the urban environment in North Texas. The Forum has been recognized nationally with an AIA Collaboration Achievement Award for its strategic partnerships with other organizations focused on architecture, urban planning and the arts. For more information on the Forum, visit www.DallasArchitectureForum.org.
Among the over 130 speakers who have addressed the Forum’s Lecture Series are Shigeru Ban, Brad Cloepfil, Diller + Scofidio, Peter Eisenman, Michael Graves, Daniel Libeskind, Thomas Phifer, Rafael Vinoly, Juhani Pallasmaa, AIA Gold Medal Winner Peter Bohlin, and regional architects David Lake and Ted Flato. Pritzker Prize winners speaking to the Forum have been Kazuyo Sejima, Rafael Moneo, Thom Mayne, Rem Koolhaas and Norman Foster (the latter two in collaboration with the ATT Performing Arts Center). Other speakers for the Forum have been leading designers Calvin Tsao, Andrée Putman, and Karim Rashid; landscape architect Michael Van Valkenburgh; and National Trust President Emeritus Richard Moe. Important critics, authors and patrons who have spoken to the Forum include Emily Pulitzer, Terence Riley, Pulitzer prize winners Robert Campbell and Blair Kamin, Aaron Betsky, and the late David Dillon.
The Forum organizes and presents an annual series of Panels—local, informal, open, and offered free of charge as a public service to the community—led by a moderator who brings a subject of local importance along with comments by participating panelists. Moderators and Panelists have also come from both other Texas cities as well as from national institutions that were connected with particular Panel subjects. Panels offer attendees the opportunity to participate in creating discourse. Important topics addressed in Panels in recent years include: “Thoughts on the Dallas Comprehensive Plan”; “The Kimbell Expansion: A Discussion”; “Filling Out the Dallas Arts District”; and “Re-envisioning the Trinity”.
The Dallas Architecture Forum also presents two symposia annually. The Forum works closely with the School of Architecture of the University of Texas at Arlington, and jointly presents the David Dillon Symposium in Texas Architecture. Symposia have focused on local architectural icons Frank Welch and E. G. Hamilton, and on “African American Architecture in Dallas”. The Dallas Design Symposium, founded four years ago by the Forum, has created a partnership with the Nasher Sculpture Center and in 2011 presented environmental artist Christo.

To follow us on Facebook visit http://www.facebook.com/pages/Dallas-Architecture-Forum/139899379388425?ref=ts. For Twitter, our account is DallasArchForum. For press information and photos, please contact: Lisa Taylor, 214.914.1099 or [email protected]

Official Website: http://www.dallasarchitectureforum.org