Houston Downtown Park: "Downtown’s Backyard"

Houston, TX (2005)

Client: Houston Downtown Park Conservancy

Downtown Houston is a geographically large area that has relatively few open spaces in it, aside from the Bayou Trail System. The site for the new Houston Downtown Park is located in the heart of downtown; it is surrounded by a convention center, hotel, and a number of sports arenas. The potential for converting the space, which currently consists of 12-acres of underused green space and parking lots, into an oasis for downtown Houston is tremendous.

Project for Public Spaces (PPS) helped the Houston Downtown Park Conservancy, a group of leading local foundations, philanthropists and civic officials, to facilitate a community process to develop a vision and program for the future park, with the idea that this would become Houston's "Backyard."

The goals of this work were to create a long-term vision that will guide the park's development and help ensure that it becomes a major attraction in the region, and to elicit ideas from the community to develop a program of uses and activities for the design of the park.

PPS facilitated a series of meetings and workshops, during which participants worked together to develop a vision for the park, and recommend what attractions would entice different people to it. PPS and the Conservancy also conducted a number of stakeholder meetings that convened downtown workers, residents of the second ward, representatives of cultural and environmental organizations, youth, and others.

The process revealed a number of common concerns and elements that were integrated into the concept for the park that PPS ultimately developed for the Conservancy, including: linkages to other downtown institutions; the desire and need for activities at all times of the day, week, and year; multi-functional spaces that can serve different purposes; preservation of certain existing landscape features; and a design strategy with children in mind that will create a place that will attract families.

PPS developed a Site Activity Plan to address these issues. The plan will be used to guide the design of the park, which is underway with Hargreaves Associates. PPS recommended creating an array of activities that attract different kinds of people. Rather than just one great destination in the park, a number of them are needed to create a dynamic place. PPS identified several potential multi-dimensional destinations in the new park that will each attract people, and also interrelate with each other.

The park, referred to as 'Downtown's Backyard,' is slated to open in the fall of 2007.

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