Merit Awards

Schrickel, Rollins & Associates
Townscape, Inc.
Planning and Analysis

As the Texas Department of Transportation (TXDOT) announced plans to improve the I-30 corridor thru Arlington, the landscape architect recognized a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to use the new infrastructure to create a permanent image of character and quality for the community. The faceless corridor between Cooper St. and Ballpark Way is traveled by millions and bisects the Entertainment District. In this project landscape architects championed the need for pedestrian connectivity, safety and comfort in a project many viewed as purely vehicular. They saw opportunity for future retail development and carved out space to accommodate it. They synthesized input from key corridor stakeholders, including City and State agencies, the North Central Texas Council of Governments, Six Flags Over Texas, the Texas Rangers Baseball Club, and numerous property and business owners, resulting in a widely supported design concept that knits disparate attractions in the corridor into a destination district.

BWM Group
Design / Constructed / Public

The national award-winning Brushy Creek Regional Trail and Conservation Corridor symbolizes community-building at its best. It connects three cities, two municipal utility districts and unincorporated areas of Williamson County. The landscape architect spent more than a year facilitating meetings with six governmental entities — as well as two public workshops — to help define the vision for the project. Once the vision was defined, the landscape architect led a grant-writing team to secure a first-ever “regional park” grant through Texas Parks and Wildlife, which contributed $750,000. Williamson County Parks and Recreation Director Jim Rodgers has observed that the parties involved in the Brushy Creek project now seem to plan their respective projects with an eye toward regional gain, assessing how their local developments could be designed to connect communities and provide a better quality of life for residents countywide. In 2004, the National Park Service designated the Brushy Creek Regional Trail and Conservation Corridor a National Recreation Trail. That same year, the landscape architect received American Trails’ Award of Excellence in Trail Planning and Design.

Mesa Design Group
Communications

Bryant Park has been held in the public trust since the late 17th century, and after a period of decline in the 1980’s the park has once again become a jewel for New Yorkers. In January 2007, the Bryant Park Corporation initiated a dialogue with the landscape architect to discuss future plans for a topnotch children’s area on par with Frank Gehry’s playground planned for Lower Manhattan’s Battery Park. The conversation culminated with a design charette and contracts with two landscape architecture firms, each competing to develop a vision statement and garden concepts for Bryant Park. Each firm developed two original garden concepts, and a third concept—a design exploration of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s 1943 book, The Little Prince, was assigned by the Bryant Park Corporation. The landscape architect presented three design ideas in a visual storybook of hand-drawn pen and ink sketches, Photoshop renderings, SketchUp models, and text. The pen and ink sketches reflect the traditions of the landscape architecture profession, and the computer-generated renderings acknowledge the direction of the profession. The document became a children’s book of sorts with designs that respect the child, share in a quest for knowledge, and offer a safe place to explore in a sometimes-overwhelming world.

SWA Group Dallas
Design / Unrealized / Public

A lake edge urban park in the new town of Xiamen situated atop a hillside that currently houses a military facility. The park concept includes a more passive approach than the other local formal urban parks and shall be overlaid to combine both the natural aspects of the lake and the adjacent structure of the city. This combination results in two primary geometric strokes that form the structure of the park – the meandering stone shoreline and the serial canal and promenade system. The canal and promenade system each lie at the terminus of a city street and receive visitors from the adjacent residential and shopping areas. These linear elements ‘slice’ through the hill that borders the lake and both allow direct access into the park and create a series of elevated garden parks that sit above and look out over the lake. The notion of the ‘quarry’ comes from one of the large local industries where many people in the community are employed; granite quarries. The idea of creating a ‘quarry’ park was to use the local stone in a way that was artful, whimsical, engaging and interesting and to provide a place where citizens can see the many beautiful things created from the raw material that they extract from the ground, especially the quarry spoils.

Jacobs Carter Burgess
Design / Constructed / Public

This project is a successful representation of how simple, cost effective design improvements can be applied by landscape architects to major public works that have significant effects on the community character and quality.Transportation facilities constitute a seldom recognized yet significant land use within our built environments. Although their collective impact on communities is substantial, they seldom receive adequate urban design consideration. While landscape architects and urban designers have found similar roles in high profile projects, the IH-30 Reconstruction Enhancement Design stands as an example of standard projects that deserve comparable design attention. By necessity, this project type mandates command of effective restraint over design excess. In this case, the landscape architects applied modest improvements to lend context based meaning and design quality for this important one and a half mile urban corridor. The quantitative magnitude of the improvements are less important than the qualitative effect of this and other projects applied at a regional scale. In fact, it is the resulting “less with more” approach that enabled the improvements to be realized.

SWA Group Houston
Design / Unrealized / Public

The project is an initiative for the government of Pakistan to create a new waterfront development on a site west of the existing city of Karachi, Pakistan. The “new city” will contain a carefully defined and weighted balance of residential, commercial, recreational and entertainment facilities as well as open space framework systems. The Landscape Architects’ design includes developing an approach for integrating natural features and providing “working landscape” processes in character with the Karachi climate and culture into the Urban Design Master Plan. In addition, the Landscape Architects’ efforts include developing a more detailed master plan for the 3,000-hectare Phase One area of District 7, with a major urban waterfront. This plan includes the preservation of existing mangroves, and provides landscape-driven water quality remediation, storm water management, sustainable energy production, and agrarian use.

Talley Associates
Design / Constructed / Residential

Kessler Woods is a four phase residential housing project located in the Oak Cliff neighborhood of South Dallas. The landscape architect collaborated with the developer and multiple architectural firms to define the vision for this infill development, then provided master planning, overall site design, and residential design for a number of individual homes. The homes are oriented about a naturalized community green space planted with native and adapted trees, grasses and groundcovers. The design responds to the site’s dramatic topography and provides a rugged setting for the stunning modern residences.

SWA Group Houston
Design / Constructed / Public

The McAllen Convention Center campus is a significant new landmark for the South Texas Rio Grande Valley metropolis. Through a collaborative planning and design process involving a supportive City leadership, the design team has created a campus that can grow and one that includes excellence in site development, stormwater detention, bioswales features, and coordinated architectural elements. This project establishes a benchmark for future urban design and landscape architecture for the City of McAllen, Texas.

Hocker Design Group
Design / Constructed / Residential

This garden was designed around an active young family. The resulting landscape design created a synthesis of multiple site lines, and the connection of multiple spaces. The space is anchored by a 25 meter long swimming pool, in which this family of avid swimmers exercise daily. This garden is full of texture and bold architectural lines.

Britton and Associates
Design / Constructed / Residential

The landscape architect worked closely with the owners of this Dallas, TX, garden to create a relaxing, spa-like atmosphere. Originally an open yard with grass, the finished garden extends the living area outside and functions as a space for large gatherings and day-to-day recreation and relaxation for the family. Low maintenance plant materials provide continually changing scenery while the hardscape, water, pottery, and evergreens provide a strong structure that is beautiful year-round. To the clients’ great surprise, the garden also serves as a place for them to just sit and relax while enjoying nature in the middle of a busy city.

SWA Group Dallas
Design / Unrealized / Public

The architect for the project was engaged to design a unique and iconic building that would be the centerpiece for a new mixed-use, master plan development that is located on the shoreline of Jing-Ji Lake. It is a rising new town built adjacent to the important historic city of Suzhou which is well known today for the culturally significant Chinese gardens that were created there during the Song Dynasty. The site consists of a man-made peninsula that is situated to enhance the prominence of the building. The shape of the building and its articulated exterior shell is based on the conceptual notion of an oyster and a pearl. The main building embraces the smaller, inner building on the landward side and then unfolds toward the lake facing side to the view of the open water. Upon completion this project will become an important educational and entertainment resource for the citizens of this burgeoning new city. The landscape architecture of the site will assist in educating people about their rich garden and landscape heritage and its relationship to literature, poetry, science and the arts.

HOK
Planning and Analysis

With the Dallas Cowboys moving to a new home, the landmark site of Texas Stadium offered a unique opportunity for an expansive urban development. This opportunity gave birth to “The Crossroads,” a comprehensive vision for ‘Regenerative Urbanism’. The Crossroads plan aspires to restore many of the site’s natural features, such as forestlands and waterways; features that existed before river levee construction and eventual industrialization. Restoring
the ecosystem and imbuing the urban design with rich landscapes and parks would create sustainable outdoor environments ideally suited for the Southwestern climate, thus mitigating heat island effects and promoting natural cooling and breezes. The plan not only seeks to transform Texas Stadium’s super-structure into a world-class multicultural and environmental educational complex, it endeavors to set new benchmarks for urban development in the Southwest.

Halff & Associates
Planning and Analysis

Over the years, El Paso has struggled to meet its citizens’ recreation needs, working with high growth rates and poverty levels that are among the highest in the country. The plans represent a 180 degree change in direction for the system by promoting the idea of parks/open space as a major infrastructure component of the city. The title “Towards A Bright Future” represents the positive and far reaching theme of these plans. The plans are visionary, painting a picture of what El Paso can be like with a first class park and open space system. They illustrate the way that a good analytical planning process can be visionary, can inspire and truly put forth what the citizens of the city want, and yet at the same time can be down to earth and very common sense in what it recommends. This is truly a momentous undertaking for El Paso, and has inspired a great change in direction in funding, growth pattern, and indeed the very way in which El Paso now looks at itself.

Coleman & Associates
Design / Constructed / Commercial

This gold-rated LEED project for the University of Texas in Houston is located in the heart of the Texas Medical Center. This project features 100% native planting design, a drip irrigation system completely supported by five 15,000 gallon cisterns that collect grey water, condensate, and roof water. Two roof-top gardens overlook the skyline and the park that provide outdoor meeting and entertaining space while providing environmental cooling for the building. A native sandstone labyrinth anchors the outdoor naturalized garden adjacent to outdoor dining space.

Clark Condon Associates
Design / Constructed / Public

Webber Plaza is located in the heart of the University of Texas Medical School in the Texas Medical Center. Nestled among the school buildings, laboratories, Jesse Jones Library, and other major hospital buildings, Webber Plaza provides a one acre oasis where students, visitors, medical staff and faculty can relax in a comfortable outdoor setting. The renovation of the courtyard was sparked by the devastating flood damage from the 2001 Tropical Storm Allison. After the storm many Texas Medical Center institutions embarked on flood mitigation projects to protect their assets from future storms. The Landscape Architect led the redesign of this people place and met the requirements for flood mitigation.

Jacobs Carter Burgess
Planning and Analysis

For more than twenty five years Woodall Rodgers Freeway has served as a divider line between Downtown Dallas and Uptown. This privately led, public/private initiative explores the feasibility and preliminary design of an innovative “deck plaza” spanning Woodall Rodgers Freeway to capture public space complementary to a variety of local initiatives. This linkage promotes a walkable pedestrian environment tying the two districts together and creates a four and one half acre community park asset out of thin air. In doing so, the project transforms an otherwise austere highway right-ofway into a multi-modal environment conducive to dense mixed use development.

This planning effort succeeded in achieving what prior attempts failed to – agency approvals and community consensus. The feasibility study focused on key issues of project program, construction feasibility, cost definition, community impact and public/private partnerships for construction funding, maintenance and operation. As a result, the project has received governing agency approvals and significant subsidies in the form of transportation enhancement grant funds, city bond fund commitments and private donor contributions. The Feasibility Study lays the groundwork for subsequent detailed design and the anticipated construction of a transformative urban initiative of national significance.