The Work House, Arlington, Texas
Abstract
**Please note that the full text is embargoed** ABSTRACT: The Work House, Fielder Bridge Office Building, Arlington, Texas. The work house appears to grow out of the prairie-like land of its site and form an undulating profile against the big sky, like outcroppings of the prairie. A wide earth berm forms the rising of the building from the ground. The berm acts as sound protection and spiritual separation from an adjacent railway line, shielding both the building and the parking area. The earth berm also echoes the earth berms over the perpendicular road that bridges over the railroad. These berms become hills and provide interest in a relatively flat landscape. A courtyard space is created by the dynamics between a wing of offices that parallels the tracks and another that parallels the street, and acts as a further refuge from the railroad. The elevation is a pattern of windows, with the operable part for natural ventilation expressed as smaller than the large fixed section. A pewter-color terne roof and vertical surface that continues the rhythm of the lines of the standing seams, descends from the sky to meet buff-colored stucco walls rising out of the earth.