Architecture Planning Interior Design
Senior Living Christian Facilities Parks+ Recreation
Corporate
Residential+ Master Planning The Studio
Senior Living
Waterview at Lake Granbury
The Waterview community is located along the edge of the Texas hill country on a scenic peninsula at Lake Granbury. The active retirement living provided here features cottages, Independent and Assisted residences. The Independent Living building contains 130 units and the adjacent Assisted Living building contains 81 units including a 20 resident memory care neighborhood. The design emphasizes lake views and the rich architectural detailing found in this Texas hill country and ranching region.
Architecture Planning Interior Design
The community features a clubhouse with a swimming pool at the lake’s edge, boat dock, exercise rooms, a private theater, beauty salons, neighborhood store and gift shop, activity rooms, a bistro cafe and various indoor and outdoor dining venues.
Wesleyan at Estrella
Phase one of the new master planned Wesleyan Retirement Living community at Estrella began with a 124 unit Independent Living building. The Phase Two Assisted Living building shown above provided an additional 80 units to the campus. Future phases include 124 additional Independent Living units, cottage duplex homes with clubhouse, a Wellness Center and small group home Skilled Nursing Care facilities.
Architecture Planning Interior Design
Adante
The Adante senior adult community built on 26 wooded acres in San Antonio was designed as a more contemporary approach to active retirement living. The campus, containing 210 Independent and Assisted living units as well as 30 cottage homes and community center was sited among 5 acres of natural valley woodlands and trails.
Architecture Planning Interior Design
The casual cafe above is located adjacent to the formal dining room with access and views to the outdoor dining area and wooded landscape beyond. The community building and pool, shown left, house an exercise room and private meeting spaces complete with a catering kitchen.
The campus provides its residents with varied indoor and outdoor amenities including barber and beauty shops, card playing and activity rooms, stadium seating theater and several living and meeting spaces.
The Adante Assisted Living provides an increased level of resident care while maintaining an elegant and contemporary living environment.
San Remo
Completed in 2010, San Remo is the result of reimagining the transitional and long term care skilled nursing facility. It contains 104, mostly private patient rooms with private baths. Designed in the Mediterranean Italian style, the architecture is rich in materials with historical detailing, complimenting it’s surrounding neighborhood.
Architecture Planning Interior Design
Beacon Hill
Architecture Planning Interior Design
Positioned on a hilltop in Dennison, Texas, this 150 bed transitional and long term care skilled nursing facility features a luxury resort-style residential setting. The building was designed using wood timber trusses and stone in the truest Arts and Crafts style. The architectural theme was extended throughout the building’s interiors creating a unique and picturesque environment, while maintaining the highest levels of patient care.
Carlyle at Stonebridge Park
Designed in the early American neoclassical style, the Carlyle skilled nursing facility contains 112 beds among highly appointed common rooms. The living room was patterned after the famous Jeffersonian home, Monticello, in both color and detail. The architecture most visible upon arrival is an expansive therapy gymnasium expressing the center’s commitment to rehabilitation and physical wellbeing.
Architecture Planning Interior Design
Solera
Drenched in the south Texas sun, the Solera skilled nursing facility is located west of Houston in Katy, Texas. The Spanish Colonial design expresses itself in the cool colors and use of natural materials. The design and attention to detail at the patient services areas creates the overall appearance of fine hospitality yet adeptly supports the serious clinical care provided.
Architecture Planning Interior Design
Christian Facilities
Fairview Church
Finding their original church location in downtown Lebanon, Tennessee, unable to support the congregation’s growth, Fairview Church engaged GHLA to design a new campus on 49 acres of nearby pasture land. The 43,000 square foot phase-one building contains an 800 seat worship center and classroom space for all ages. GHLA master planned the entire site for an auditorium expansion and additional classrooms to support growth in their private school.
Architecture Planning Interior Design
Point of Grace
The congregation of Point of Grace Lutheran Church purchased 26 acres along the 180 toll road in Pflugerville, Texas, for their first permanent church location. The new facility includes a 390 seat worship center, a vibrant children’s education wing, youth center and church offices. The distinctive entrance canopy not only catches the eye of the fast moving traffic, but reflects the dynamic nature of God’s grace.
Architecture Planning Interior Design
Select Christian Facilities
Fellowship of the Parks Grapevine Fellowship of the Parks Church, established only 15 years ago in Keller, Texas has expanded their ministry by constructing two satellite campuses to date. The Fellowship of the Parks Grapevine, shown above will seat 750 and have two floors of education space once the final phase in completed. Clad in natural stone materials and glass, the church entrance foyer provides an open invitation to the community to come in and be a part of what God is doing. Centerpoint Church (shown right) includes a 325 seat auditorium and children’s education center. Their 8 acre site in North Richland Hills, Texas was master planned to maximize the use of the property.
Architecture Planning Interior Design
Centerpoint
Parks+ Recreation
Frisco Commons
Architecture Planning Interior Design
Located near the center of historic Frisco, Texas, this City park was designed as a gathering place for city wide events as well as family picnics. While there are no ball fields for organized sports, the park hosts a large children’s playground, group pavilions, a veteran’s memorial, botanical garden, amphitheater, a lake for fishing and nature trails that lead through undisturbed woodlands and prairies. The expressive architecture was designed with structure as delicate as flower stems and roof canopies that appear to float on the breeze. Frisco Commons is the winner of the TRAPS Park Design Excellence Award (2005) and the NRPA Southwest Region – Facility Design Award Class II (2008)
The Learning Center
The Cotton Creek Willow Tree Learning Center was built by the Grand Prairie, Texas Housing Finance Corporation as a service to their community. The 23,000 square foot recreation center contains a community room, full size competition gymnasium with spectator seating, craft room, teen game room, youth center and several educational classrooms.
Architecture Planning Interior Design
The facility was designed simply and to the budget with exposed structure and building systems. The airplane wing shaped roof structure, while nodding to the neighboring aviation manufacturing facility, allows natural light into the gymnasium. This project won a 2002 Excellence in Architecture Award from the American Institute of Architecture.
La Villita
The architecture of the Spanish Mediterranean is reflected throughout the master planned mixed-use Community of La Villita in Irving, Texas. The design drew from the richness of this style to create memorable amenity spaces that both serve the neighborhoods and are beautiful to see. Natural materials and colorful handmade tiles found on the entry monuments, the tranquil lake pavilion and neighborhood picnic shelters unify this community with a feeling of calm and gracefulness.
Architecture Planning Interior Design
Harold Bacchus Park
This parks and recreation facility on the east side of the City of Frisco, Texas, was designed as the city’s premiere sports field complex. It contains tournament baseball fields including an accessible “field of dreams”, soccer fields and football practice fields. The architectural theme was derived from the buildings present at the time of the City’s founding as a retail and shipping train stop in 1902. The materials of brick, steel structure and metal roofing echo the historic buildings on Main Street, adjacent to the rail lines. The architectural design provides strong visual anchors to the various sporting venues that comprise this large Park.
Architecture Planning Interior Design
BF Phillips Park
The Phillips ranch originally created in 1936 primarily for raising cattle became famous for its quarter horses. The City of Frisco, Texas purchased a portion of the 640 acre ranch in 2007 to build a baseball and soccer sports complex. Drawing from the land’s now legendary past, GHLA incorporated the horse ranch as the architectural theme.
Architecture Planning Interior Design
The restroom and concession buildings took their forms from the horse barn while the picnic shelter adjacent to the playground recreated the stalls, complete with ponies. The terraced spectator seating around the baseball diamonds provide optimal views to the ball fields.
Select Parks
Grayhawk Special care is given to the design of each parks and recreation project to create a unique and memorable experience for the users. Each building is designed to best reflect the site and the uses it provides but also instill the feeling of having been part of a broader sense of place.
Architecture Planning Interior Design
Grayhawk
Warren Park
Prosper Sports Complex
Bicentennial Spray Park
at Frisco Commons
Corporate
Cantex Corporate Office
In 2007, GHLA assisted Cantex in bringing several of the administrative and service components of their company to one location. The clean interiors and fine materials portray a refined modern aesthetic that provides an efficient and beautiful workspace for the staff. The masonry material on the exterior was used in a unique way to give the appearance of larger stone units set in a random pattern. GHLA provided full design services for this project including site and building design, space planning, interior design and furniture selection.
Architecture Planning Interior Design
GHLA Office
In 2003, Gaylen Laing designed and built a 5,000 square foot office building for his growing architectural firm. The wooded one acre site provided the shade required for an extensive use of glass resulting in a building that functions almost entirely with natural day lighting from outside. The workspace is laid out in three open office studios fostering the firm’s team approach to project delivery.
Architecture Planning Interior Design
Residential+ Master Planning
Residential
Smith Residence GHLA has accepted a small number of residential commissions over it’s fifteen year history. These projects have been with clients who have wished to build homes of high quality, fine taste and beauty.
Architecture Planning Interior Design
The Smith house, at the client’s specific request, was designed in the traditional Georgian style. Authentic detailing and construction techniques were used to create a home of genuine character and southern charm. The 10,000 square foot home was carefully placed on a sloping wooded lot accessed by bridge over a stream.
Kasal Residence The French Provincial style is known by its perfect balance, arch top windows that break through the eave, cast stone trim and high pitched slate roofs. The Kasal house in Westover Hills, Texas, is a beautiful example of this style. The 7,500 square foot Gutta house (shown right) in the Mira Vista community of Fort Worth, Texas, was designed as a modern adaptation of the Spanish Mediterranean style. The home’s characteristically deep set windows and cantera stone arcade help to shield the home from sunlight while creating an ever changing shadow-play on the walls.
Gutta Residence
Master Planning One of the major strengths of the firm has been its ability to artfully plan sites of all sizes to best accommodate their proposed uses. The site orientation, views, topography, environmental sensitivity, vegetation and tree coverage, natural features and sometimes drawbacks are all taken into consideration when planning. Land is often designed for a multi-phase development with thoughtful care given to the processional approach and architectural presentation of the development. Vehicular and pedestrian circulation is designed to minimize any unnecessary coverage, complement the natural fall of the land and craft the picturesque unfolding of the architecture.
Firm Profile The firm’s approach to Architecture is to produce work that is a product of the present in a style that is timeless. A strong emphasis is made toward conceptual and spatial simplicity. This approach to design produces buildings that immediately serve the client as well as allow for future flexibility necessary for adapted uses and expansion. Our desire is to produce buildings that are both highly functional and beautiful throughout.
Firm Goals To create architecture that is a modern expression of our clients’ needs and personalities. To deliver the highest level of service. To provide a product of great value to the client. To develop projects of substance, taste and quality. To honor God within the profession and by the process and results of our work.
History The firm was established in 1997 with a vision toward producing innovative, economical and finely crafted architecture and interior design. Gaylen Laing has over thirty years of broad experience in design, production and project management. The firm has grown through the years into a team with the skills necessary to develop projects from conceptual design through comprehensive construction documents, and then to work with contractors to ensure a polished end result. The keystone of the firm is providing attention to detail, thoroughness and communication on every project.
Services GHLA provides full architectural services, including planning and interior design. Approximately 10% of our projects involve integrating with, remodeling or adding on to existing facilities. The focus of the firm centers on five project types: Senior Living Facilities, Christian Facilities, Parks and Recreation, Education and Planning.
GHLA would like to thank our many clients over the past fifteen years for allowing us to provide architectural design services. Their commitment to building quality buildings and developments made possible the collection of projects represented in this brochure. I would also like to thank the exceptional studio staff of GHLA for their dedication, creativity and service to our clients and building projects. A final thanks to Omar Hason of OH! for his technical expertise in the production of this brochure. -Gaylen Laing
OH!
ARCHITECTURE PLANNING INTERIOR DESIGN www.ghla-inc.com 817.801.7200 1300 W. Randol Mill Rd. Suite 100 Arlington, Texas 76012