Fort Worth Council Chambers

As the nation's 11th-most populous city, Fort Worth wanted an iconic civic space that projected a friendly, easy-to-use vibe while looking to its future. The project creates a community-facing “back porch” for the City, a welcoming setting that draws people to gather, linger, and participate in civic life, as neighbors sharing time together.

A second goal was to express government transparency through the council chamber itself. The design opens the chamber to the outside and brings the outside in. Full-height glazing, up to 16 feet tall, surrounds the chamber, allowing ambient daylight to fill the room and reinforcing the chamber as an open, comfortable place to conduct the people’s business.

Above this open, daylit chamber, a floating-roof form creates a contemporary “hat” that extends beyond the building's footprint. To keep the exterior envelope fully open, the roof structure is supported independently, avoiding any load-bearing elements within the glazed envelope. The roof engages the main building only at a two-story concrete shear wall, where lateral loads are transferred.

With the chamber’s intentionally open perimeter, the ceiling becomes the primary interior design opportunity. Exposed heavy-timber glulam beams introduce warmth and a memorable architectural rhythm, with layout options that let the system's geometry and math shape the aesthetic. The same timber language extends both within and beyond the footprint, reinforcing the perception that the roof
plane floats.

The timber roof extends well beyond the chamber, covering the monumental stair “back porch” and heightening the public entry sequence. That extension is also performance-driven: its projection was calculated to keep direct sunlight off the dais and out of the audience. Daylight-rich glazing, paired with calibrated shading, improves comfort and limits glare for both officials and attendees.
Select heavy timber members span up to 130 feet to make these reaches possible. From the plaza and stairs, the wood ceiling becomes the project’s public face; readable, inviting, and unmistakably civic.

To keep the focus on the timber itself, connections are concealed within the members so no exposed bolts, plates, or hardware compete visually, resulting in a clean ceiling that emphasizes the timber's geometry. Together, these moves pair a memorable civic room with structural and environmental intent, aligning design excellence and innovative wood expression with a high-impact public experience at a civic scale