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Building the Vision
PHASE I - THE MODEL STUDIO
SiNaCa is currently looking at a facility in a very arts-oriented district of Fort Worth. It's surrounded by new businesses and restaurants. Our first facility would serve as a "model studio", offereing a smaller offering of classes that SiNaCa would have in our ultimate showcase facility. This model studio would also serve as our visual marketing facility to showcase the SiNaCa project to the community.
Please keep watching for our official opening date and schedule of classes.
PHASE II - OUR DREAM FACILITY
The actual physical expression of SiNaCa Studios will reflect the leadership and direction the school intends to provide to the community by being a model of sustainability and a showcase for new technology in the creation of art glass. We expect to create an exemplary learning environment, one of a very limited number in the world that teaches glass artistry exclusively, one that will make Fort Worth an internationally recognized destination for glass art.
As envisioned, the school will sit on an eight acre site near the Fort Worth Cultural district and adjacent to the Trinity River.
The proposed site once held a nursery and greenhouses. Long since demolished, the property is neglected and awaiting renewed use. It is ideal for SiNaCa’s purposes, as it allows easy access from a major roadway, is adjacent to the Trinity Bike and Hike path and is across the street from a bus stop. It is larger than is needed, which allows plenty of parking and landscape areas to develop a native planting plan and water conservation zones.
Since the buildable area of the site is on a hillside, the school can feasibly be multilevel, which allows opportunity for covered rooftop areas for dining, events and lounge areas that would have a panoramic view toward downtown Fort Worth. This feature leads us to anticipate that the school will become a civic destination and toward that end, will include event and gallery space and a retail gallery displaying student’s work for sale as well as other glass and school related items. A café that will be open daily for students and visitor groups to enjoy a light snack and lunches will be situated to overlook the glass working area. A finishing kitchen will be available to allow outside caterers to provide service to larger groups and special events.
In addition to a state of the art glass blowing studio ‘hot shop’, there will be classrooms for lectures, studio workrooms for kiln forming, flameworking and cold finishing, and a kiln room that will contain several fusing kilns of varying sizes for individual pieces as well as administrative offices and service areas. Additional studio space may be included for mixed media projects and to showcase guest artists.
The hot shop area will be large enough to allow up to 8 glass blowers to simultaneously use the furnace and glory holes, with a raised viewing mezzanine level envisioned that overlooks the work floor from a safe distance that could also be used for public functions and events.
As a glass furnace must be kept at approximately 2200 degrees Fahrenheit 24 hours a day, it requires massive amounts of fuel to keep it going, and produces equally massive amounts of waste heat. Some of the technology we intend to explore will incorporate heat recovery systems that recycle heat back to the furnace, insulating the furnaces to retain more heat and other methods to reduce the heat in the workspace without cooling the furnaces unnecessarily.
Other possibilities to be explored are to use the waste heat to create steam for running an electric generator, heating the building water, operating ovens for the café, running turbines, or seasonally supplement some of the building heat.
Fuel conservation will also be an area of exploration; we expect to make significant reductions in the amount of raw fuel needed to operate the facility. Additional technologies that may be appropriate, such as photovoltaic panels or wind power generators could be used to offset the fuel that we will need by providing supplemental electric power, or even enough to run the building and feed to the power grid for credit.
SiNaCa is dedicated to creating an environmentally responsible building with intention to apply for LEED certification in the construction of the facility. This will include native and adapted landscaping for reduced water use, regionally available natural materials and finishes, appropriate solar and climate technologies and efficient, adaptable space planning.
The building exterior will be finished in native limestone and glass with steel structure and metal accents and roofing. Interior finishes could include exposed structure, limestone, native mesquite, oak or pecan wood flooring, recycled carpeting and Low-VOC painted walls. As could be expected, glass will be an important part of the structure, including a freestanding Founder’s Wall of etched and carved glass that will display the names of Charter Members and donors who make the school possible.
To become a Member of Sinaca Studios, click here.
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