Fort Worth, Hahnfeld honored for Meacham Airport building

Meacham Airport Administration building 

Fort Worth and Hahnfeld Hoffer Stanford will receive the American Institute of Architects (AIA)-Fort Worth Chapter’s Excellence in Sustainable Development Award for the new Meacham Airport Administration Building.

In January 2015, the airport broke ground on a new 85,000-square-foot administration building at 201 American Concourse. The existing building was gutted, part of it was demolished and a third floor was added to meet future tenants’ needs.

The renovation project addressed many deficiencies, including outdated heating/ventilation and air conditioning systems, cooling towers that were under constant repair, lack of fire protection in certain areas and Americans with Disabilities Act accessibility concerns.

Here are some of the unique features of the building:

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Conference center. The building features a high-tech conference center area on the third level as rentable space ideally suited for corporate training sessions, business conferences and private events such as wedding receptions.

LEED Silver Certification. A company called View Glass donated exterior glass for the building. The state-of-the-art system can automatically tint the glass depending on the position of the sun and will significantly reduce the building’s energy usage. There are sensors on each side of the building that measure the light hitting it and adjust the exterior tinting of the glass to a predetermined setting. The building has new energy-efficient HVAC systems and uses LED lighting to reduce energy usage.

Public art. In keeping with Fort Worth’s commitment to art in public spaces, a soaring sculpture, suggestive of a swirling flock of hundreds of birds, is suspended to span the height of the three-story atrium. The artwork, called Collective Transitions, is by artist Kipp Kobayashi. The artwork consists of 800 “paper airplanes” fabricated out of stainless steel and painted to look like folded paper. Each airplane is individually suspended from the ceiling of the three-story atrium at Meacham International Airport on fine stainless steel cables. There are five unique designs, each representing a different style of aircraft.

The Meacham Administration Building was built in 1968 as a two-story building with the capacity to become a five-story building. Other than a first-floor addition in 1982, there have been no updates to the original structure. The recent renovation removed the 1982 addition, increasing the size of the public apron for aircraft parking.

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The AIA award will be presented on Feb. 2, 2019, in the auditorium of the Fort Worth Modern Art Museum.