Douglas Newby Insights - Page 21
Sky + Trees = Pool
Aqua is the aquatic color of the sea, or the color reflected in the pool of the famous clear blue Dallas skies and lush green trees of the city. There is something very elegant when a lawn comes up to the side of a pool and the canopy of trees is pushed to the perimeter. This creates the perfect effect of sun and shade. If one is not at the sea during the summer, why not an older neighborhood in Dallas. Here is an example of the good life. *Sky + Trees = Pool
#FavoriteSwissAvenueHome #Landscape #LandscapeDesign #Pool #SunAndShade #DowntownNeighborhood #DallasNeighborhood #Dallas #SwissAvenue #MungerPlace #Lawn #Garden #Aqua #BlueSky #UrbanNeighborhood
SMU Heroes Honor Ben
SMU has been the launching pad for many in Dallas including these SMU heroes who gathered to honor Ben Malcolmson at an impressive well attended book signing of his dynamic, thrilling book Walk On, with a foreward by Coach Pete Carroll. Chuck Hixson was an SMU quarterback that put SMU on the map for many potential SMU students across the country. His passing records stood for almost 50 years. He continues to contribute to Dallas in a monumental way as a principal of Westdale Management that is transforming Deep Ellum. Chuck Dannis also played football at SMU and is synonymous with real estate appraisals. He just received the lifetime achievement award from the Commercial Association of Real Estate Professionals. Ken Malcolmson, a business leader, has chaired, participated, or has been president of the most important Dallas civic organization, and is past president of the SMU Alumni Association. He is also the father of Ben Malcolmson. It is fun to see a group I have admired since I was at school now convene to honor a young man I have also very much admired for many years. *SMU Heroes Honor Ben
#SMU #BookSigning #WalkOn #Hero #SMUHeroes #Dallas #Book #SummerReading #Triumph @BenMalcolmson #BenMalcolmson #ChuckHixsonSMU @ChuckDannis #ChuckDannis #KenMalcolmson @StaceyMalcolmson #HighlandPark #Hinsdale
Declining Debutante
A debutante never ages—well maybe a little—but always with grace, authority, and elegance. Virtually every shiny, new, aspirational apartment eventually suffers a rough decline. Even fashionable apartments meet their demise. The Debutante Apartments at one time were probably as stylish and glamorous as those on Gaston Avenue geared towards stewardesses, models, and young professionals, but in less than 15 years became weekly rentals and flophouses. New Urbanists,’ planners,’ and city officials’ love affair with density, apartment zoning and the short-term glamor of new apartments should always remember the Debutante. *Declining Debutante
#Debutantes #Apartment #Apartments #Density #Urbanist #NewUrbanist #ApartmentZoning #SingleFamilyZoning #Dallas #AffordableHousing #UrbanLiving #Dallas #Neighborhood #DallasNeighborhoods #DelayedGentrification #Architecture #Architect #oldeastdallas
Diverse Housing → Apartments
Dallas housing officials, urbanists, and politicians have a love affair with apartments and increased density. Their talking point is that more apartments provide more affordable housing. “More density” has become the avant-garde mantra of the housing and planning cartel. In fact, zoning that is higher than the existing housing stock already built eliminates affordable housing in the area. Overzoning in a neighborhood also eliminates diversity of housing. When the 100 block of Old East Dallas was first being considered to be rezoned from multifamily zoning to single-family zoning, the opposition did not come from the developer mayor, or even apartment owners. The opposition to single-family rezoning came from well-intentioned people including those in the Park Cities and North Dallas concerned about gentrification. Single-family zoning was also opposed by the nationally renowned Dallas city planners and liberal neighborhood advocates, saying multifamily zoning was critical for the success of mass transportation and affordable housing. This single-family rezoning was enacted and there is still a diversity of housing in place from small one-story bungalows to historic duplexes, quadplexes, and 1960s two-story garden style apartments. Just a block over from the historic districts in the single-family zoned area are new massive three- and four-story apartment complexes being built. Each new large apartment complex eliminates another modest structure that a lower-income homebuyer might purchase or even rent. They need to remember new apartments are always expensive. They always have been and always will be. *Diverse Housing → Apartments
#Gentrification #Density #DensityDestroysNeighborhoods #DensityDestroysDiverseHousing #OldEastDallas #HistoricDistrict #SingleFamilyZoning #OverZoning #Dallas #DiverseHousing #Apartments #Bungalows #OlderApartments #OlderHomes #InexpensiveHousing
East Lawther Home
Many are familiar with the several-acre estate lots on West Lawther. How many are aware of the home along East Lawther and Arboretum Point? On my thousands of bike rides around White Rock Lake, I noticed the land, the lake, the trees, the meadow, the hill, but never really noticed the home on Arboretum Point that overlooks all of this. This shot from the backyard of the Arboretum Point home is tucked back into nature. It is a home that can enjoy nature and the broad views of White Rock Lake from its gardens, porches, and interior spaces. *East Lawther Home
#EastLawther #WhiteRockLakeHome #WhiteRockLake #ArboretumPoint #Landscape #Architect #Architecture #Dallas #Neighborhood #DallasNeighborhood #EmeraldIsleDallas #WhiteRockLakePark #WinfreyPoint #UrbanLake #UrbanNature #UrbanNeighborhood #Backyard #PathToSMU #PathToTrinityGroves
Screen Porch
Summer is here! What better place to spend it in Dallas than on a screen porch enjoying the cool breezes that are further filtered by the meadows and trees that surround the lake. On a hot summer day in the city it is easy to forget you can find a wonderful cool green oasis in Dallas. The very savvy and fortunate homebuyers found a site in Dallas where they can still enjoy the city when they are not traveling in the summer. A screen porch is almost summer magic. *Screen Porch
#ScreenPorch #ScreenedPorch #WhiteRockLake #Summer #Dallas #Neighborhood #DallasNeighborhood #ArboretumPoint #EastLawther #Nature #SummerBreezes #WhiteRockLakePark #WinfreyPoint #Architect #Architecture #Design #UrbanNature #Staycation #PathToSMU #PathToTrinityGroves #DowntownNeighborhood #UrbanNeighborhood #BikePath #UrbanLake #EmeraldIsleDallas
Rolling Land to Lake
As seen from this porch, here is my favorite stretch of White Rock Lake to ride my bike. Wind is at my back, there is a slight slope in my favor, the lake is on one side and the meadow, park, and Arboretum is on the other side of the bike trail. One does not even notice this single home on Arboretum Point with balconies and porches overlooking Winfrey Point, the Park, and White Rock Lake. This White Rock Lake home is such a good example of how it is not important how much land your home is on, but what it is next to or across from. Here, the home is on a half acre but it looks across 1,000 acres of lake and park. *Rolling Land to Lake
#ArboretumPoint #WhiteRockLake #WhiteRockLakeHome #WhiteRockHome #EmeraldIsleDallas #Park #Landscape #Architecture #Design #Porch #Balcony #PathToTrinityGroves #PathToSMU #Backyard #UrbanNature #Dallas #Neighborhood #DallasNeighborhood #EastLawther
Period Photograph Before Its Time
This casual photograph taken in the early spring of 2019 is current, but the photograph already feels dated.This is not a picture taken in Cuba with its arrested political and physical development and is not a small town in the Midwest where current civilization and trends have not yet landed. This is New York. This is Manhattan. This is where North American trends originate. But still I look at the photograph and already feel 50 years in the past because we are so close to having such a different urban future. Will we have Yellow Cabs in the next few years? I don’t think so. Will there be intervals of empty streets in the late afternoon in the middle of the largest city in the country? I don’t think so. It is not the historic buildings that make this photograph look like a period image before its time. Classical architecture is a wonderful backdrop for any technology that is emerging. Archaic predetermined streetlight timers are not going to regulate the flow of air taxis, drones, mini-vehicles, autonomous transportation devices, and shared lanes of pedestrians and myriad forms of movement. Uber is planning on relocating a major part of their corporation to Dallas, also chosen as a demonstration area for their air taxis and other forms of advanced transportation. Are younger cities like Dallas more open to technology or less resistant to change than New York? Will New York regulation, unions, and urban tradition keep Yellow Cabs as the look of the future? I still don’t think so. I suggest anyone living or visiting New York enhale the street scenes of Manhattan that will seem as quaint as pictures of horses and buggies on New York streets a hundred years ago. *Period Photograph Before Its Time
#YellowCab #PeriodPhotograph #PeriodPhotographBeforeItsTime #AirTaxi #NewYork #NewYork2019 #Manhattan #CityNostalgia #Nostalgia #Dallas #Uber #PrimitiveTransportation #PrimitiveStreetTraffic #Primitive #Yesterday #FleetingLook #Urban #Urbanism #City #Streetscape #Historic #Architecture #Architect #NewYorkArchitecture #NewYorkStreet #airtaxi @uber
Neiman Marcus Inside Out
Neiman Marcus has been famous for their downtown windows originally showing off fashion of designers Stanley Marcus discovered in Europe and brought to the United States. They joined Marshall Field on Michican Avenue in Chicago and Saks Fifth Avenue to entice one to trek to the city just to look at the fashion framed by the windows of these iconic retailers. These windows were like an amuse-bouche that whet your appetite, maybe even giving one courage to go inside the store to see more. A purchase was accelerated by the foundation of aspirational desire that came from admiring the goods in the deep store windows. Now Hudson Yards turns the visual concept of retail inside out. At the Hudson Yards Neiman Marcus, the best view through a window is not on the street looking into the store front window, but from the inside of Neiman Marcus looking outside at the Vessel, a walkable sculpture by architect Thomas Heatherwick. This sculpture might have cost more than all the inventory inside Neiman Marcus. It seems to me Hudson Yards is a parenthetical experiment between the adrenalin-charged destination of a downtown Neiman Marcus and increased online shopping. Will an experiential-oriented mall ever replace a stroll down a New York street of store windows or shopping online? As retail, technology, and transporation rapidly evolve, it will be interesting to see if the trend is moving towards Hudson Yards style malls or towards a more vibrant street scene of the future. *Neiman Marcus Inside Out
#NeimanMarcus #HudsonYards #StoreWindow #StanleyMarcus #Retail #Mall #InsideOut #NewYork #Dallas #ThomasHeatherwick #Vessel #Architecture #Architect #Design #Experiential @reflectionofaman
Day at the Office
With a wheelbarrow and a cell phone, anyone can be a CEO of their organization or personal industry. The smile of this young CEO reflects his open-door policy and lack of irritation at being interrupted. He didn’t even demand makeup, hair, or wardrobe for this photo shoot. *Day at the Office
#Texas #Dallas #CEO #Wheelbarrow #Furniture #OfficeChair #LoungeChair #ExecutiveChair #Recliner #Office #Industry #CellPhone #PhotoShoot #Portrait #Foundation