American Airlines

This workplace campus is sited within a disappearing Texas Blackland Prairie ecosystem. A collection of restorative and seasonally appropriate outdoor spaces are stitched together across an expansive 258-acre site. The revitalized campus preserves and restores the shrinking prairie ecology and carefully sites an expanded catalogue of spaces to encourage health and wellness for people, pollinators, and wildlife. 

The design solution reorders an existing set of buildings with 1,850,000 SF of new amenity, work, and collaboration spaces. Large sections of prairie with naturalized low maintenance plantings dissolve the boundary between high intensity planned uses and restored habitat. Employees are encouraged to move out of buildings and across the campus -- a physical manifestation of the desire to break down silos among departments.  

The design premise restores large swaths of prairie with a preservation approach to site elements. Before construction, in parts of the campus that were deeply forested, significant specimen trees were tagged and placed in a temporary nursery and then carefully reintegrated to frame buildings and arrival sequences. Similarly, significant boulders were staged and redistributed in the design of streambeds and pond edges. Rainwater treatment is also managed with natural green infrastructure. A series of dry creeks show as naturally planted vignettes in temperate weather and double as a filtration system to control runoff in peak conditions.  

A keen sensitivity to the unique site ecology is on display. Work enabled courtyards, active recreation areas, woodland trail systems and regional multi-use paths encourage outdoor use and connections to nature at every turn. New buildings are concentrated to the south in a fan shaped bar arrangement that forms pleasant outdoor courtyards with mature landscaping. A resilient water collection, detention, and circulation loop in both the eastern and western courtyards collects building condensate water and deploys it to featured ponds that mimic a naturally occurring streambed framed by native rocks, shrubs, trees, grasses, and seating areas. The campus mediates between natural and manmade, organic and planned, to create a human-scaled environment that celebrates resiliency and connection in all of its forms.