Known primarily for their ranch houses, which combine modern forms and rich local material traditions, Lake|Flato Architects have also developed an architecture of “eco-conservation.” An example is their Big Bend Fossil Discovery Exhibit in the middle of Texas’s Chihuahuan Desert.. Image © Casey Dunn
This article was originally published on Metropolis Magazine.
Green building was always part of the firm’s DNA, though a little more than ten years ago Lake|Flato formed an internal studio that would focus on landscape and resource management.
For over three decades, San Antonio’s Lake|Flato Architects have advanced the cause of critical regionalism in South Texas. Founding partners David Lake and Ted Flato met in the office of O’Neil Ford, an early Texas Modernist whose work combined structural innovation with local building traditions. When they started their own practice in 1984, Lake and Flato carried this germ with them, turning out a series of ranch houses that garnered attention for their deft blending of modern modes of living, indigenous materials, and agro-industrial vernacular.
