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AREA-ER + reach: first work day on site!
We are excited to be collaborating with the students from AREA-ER (Alternative Real Estate Action—Experiential Research) from UT Austin on The Refuge! AREA-ER is a design/build, community service seminar class focusing on voluntary and humanitarian work for the greater good and challenging the status-quo of the built environment. During the course of the semester, the class will embrace and reinforce the mission statement of The Refuge--to help build a place of healing and

wings spread over austin
The Dove Tile Project has really spread its wings and taken off around schools in Austin, Texas! Since The Dove Tile Project has flown east to Reston, Virginia, we have created an instructional video for all of our participating schools and volunteers involved. Our video explains the significance behind the Dove Tile Project, how they will be integrated into The Refuge Ranch and a demonstration on how to make them. The Dove Tile Project has flown all over the United States

dove tile project flies east
The dove tile project - Paint Our Prayers - is a creative collaboration that we initially conceived of as a pfamCa based project for our annual Christmas party. The concept has evolved into a larger effort through increased awareness and contributions from ceramic art teacher, Anne Sykes, and her students at South Lakes High School in Reston, Virginia. Anne not only worked with her students to educate them on DMST and create over 100 colorful and heartfelt tiles, but also wor

paint our prayers
Thank you so much to all of our family members, friends, and colleagues for coming out to Stanley’s Farmhouse Pizza and helping us paint tiles for The Refuge for DMST. It is so great to see how the tiles transformed into such beautiful pieces of art - full of color, character, texture, and most importantly, hope for the girls. We look forward to showcasing these tiles at The Refuge, and continuing our efforts to make a place of rest and restoration for child survivors of sex

today is the day!
We had the pleasure of joining the Saint John Paul II Life Center for their fourth annual benefit dinner, Today is the Day! at the Hyatt Downtown. Hearing the stories of several families who have faced difficult challenges, from unexpected pregnancies to infertility, and how the Saint John Paul II Life Center has helped these families overcome these challenges was uplifting and heartwarming. As the center is continuing to grow, having serviced over 2,300 patients in just 3-1/

cultureNOW - water tower bike rack
Nothing is more fulfilling than feeling a sense of community. CultureNOW celebrates our cultural environment beyond the physical constraints of our museums, and envisions the world as a “Museum Without Walls.” Both their online gallery and phone app map art and architecture installations all over the world to help the public better visualize the richness and diversity of our community, and ultimately understand the world better. We couldn’t be happier to be a part of this thr

reach family picnic
As part of our project for a more Christian architecture (pfamCa) mission, we love getting our families together to explore the community. This past Saturday we enjoyed a beautiful fall day out at Sweet Berry Farm in Marble Falls. The kids had so much fun kicking around the soccer ball, climbing on pumpkins, picking flowers from the field, riding the choo choo train and hay ride, and painting pumpkins. Let’s be honest, the adults had a lot of fun too! #family #community #pfam

rooftop film series
What’s better than enjoying a fall evening outdoors in Austin? The Contemporary downtown hosts a Rooftop Architecture Film Series, showcasing the latest architecture documentaries. Of particular interest to us as part of our pfamCa mission was Sagrada, el misteri de la creaci, a film by Stefan Haupt about the great Catalan architect, Antoni Gaudí i Cornet. La Sagrada Familia, Gaudí’s magnum opus, is a great Christian cathedral in the European tradition— some 132 years in the

bike rack ribbon cutting
We are very excited to announce the grand opening of our Water Tower Bike Rack at West Enfield Pool, designed by Alan for the City’s Art in Public Places program. It was great to see community members, local artists and architects, and staff from the Austin Parks and Recreation Department all join together to celebrate the Water Tower Bike Rack’s completion, just in time for summer. A lot of time and effort went into the design and execution of the installation and we hope th

project for a more Christian architecture
The world sometimes presents itself as a mountain of insurmountable inequality, despair. Amen, amen, I say unto, if you have faith and you believe, you can say to a mountain, “Be lifted up and cast into the sea” and it will be done for you. We therefore muster the faith to take on a project as utterly impossible as it is necessary. Our goal is nothing short of casting a human-made mountain of inequality and despair, the ghetto of the Americas, into the sea--yet, not by oblite