Houston Botanic Garden

Houston Botanic Garden

Houston Botanic Garden

Houston Botanic Garden

Conceived over thirty years ago by a small constituency of local Houstonians, an island in the city’s expansive Bayou system has been expertly cultivated and re-imagined as Houston’s first botanic garden. A world-class, ‘only-in-Houston’ experience in the Bayou City, the project includes the first phases of the Garden and a phased, experimental, and resilient 132-hectare master plan with dedicated implementation strategies that unfolds over the next 20-30 years.

Embracing the qualities of its location on a fluctuating waterway, the former golf course site required a completely balanced design that mitigates between elevating the new gardens and permanent structures out of the 100-year floodplain as well as managing, protecting, and enhancing the experience of the bayou. Within the first phases of realization, the design team developed a mechanism to passively rehabilitate the clay soils of the bayou waterways through a series of sacrificial cover crops and experimental spore treatments, creating a robust well-structured medium to support a diverse cross-section of plants from all over the world. This framework is a fundamental backbone of the design approach, serving the Garden for years to come.

Houston Botanic Garden opened to the public during the Pandemic and included: The Global Collection Garden incorporates three climatic zones— arid, subtropical, and tropical; the Family Discovery Garden utilizes the existing topography to exhibit a wild and engaging landscape for children, and lastly, the Culinary Garden features a rich, diverse selection of edible and medicinal flora, three water walls made out of 3,591 custom jade tiles. In addition, an array of custom-designed and carefully placed features supplement the character of the Garden, including the Welcome Fountain, a living water display of discarded coral stone; the colonnade of 21, thin-shell concrete vaults to provide shade from the Texan sun, and monumental steel ornamental gates with a botanic motif.

Phase 1 Design and Construction team:

 

• West 8 – Prime Consultant, Masterplan Vision & Landscape Architect.

• Clark Condon Associates Inc. – Role: Landscape Architects, Planting & Soil Design

• Overland Partners – Role: Architects – Welcome Pavilion

• Walter P. Moore Engineers – Role: Civil, Structural, and Bridge Engineering

• I.A. Naman + Associates Inc. – Role: Electrical Engineering MEP Engineering

• Sweeney & Associates Inc. – Role: Irrigation Design

• Dykema Architects Inc. Role: Architects – Lagoon Pavilion

• Greenscape Pump Services Inc. – Role: Water Feature Engineering

• Minor Design, Role: Signage and Wayfinding

• Berg-Oliver Associates, Inc. Role: Environmental Services & Land Use Consultation

• SiteWorks – Specification Preparation

• Site Masters Play Code – Play Code Consultation

• Prairie Consultation – Wildlife Habitat Federation

• Pond Aquatic Consultation – Lake Management Inc

• Harvey-Cleary Builders – General Contractor

• Landscape Art Inc. – Landscape Sub-Contractor

• B&D Contractors Inc. – Landscape Sub-Contractor

• Renfrow Metalwork – Metal fabrication

• Camarata Masonry – Masonry

29.6884277, -95.2731588

Year of the project conception
2015
Year of completion of the project
2021 (project ongoing)
COST (€/m²) ($/m²) (€/ha) ($/ha)
Undisclosed
Price category
Articulation
Price subcategory
Jardín Botánico
Surface
132ha
Customer type
Empresa privada
Customer Name
Houston Botanic Garden
U.M.
Hectares
Construction company
Harvey Cleary Builders
Works management
Houston Botanic Garden
Maintenance manager
N/A
Maintenance costs (€/m²)
N/A
地址
1 Botanic Lane, Houston, TX 77017, United States
Coordinates UTM
29.687333690710627, -95.26667115286187
City / Place
Houston
区域
Texas
国家
美国