From Rendering to Reality


Book Description

Great cities have been renewing themselves along their waterfronts for decades, and Houston's Buffalo Bayou is no exception. This historic waterway now serves as a place where visitors bike, hike, gather as a community, and appreciate nature. The crowning jewel of the waterway's renewal is Buffalo Bayou Park, 160 acres of greenspace just west of downtown. Expanded, enhanced, and extraordinary--Buffalo Bayou Park is now used by a broad array of Houstonians and visitors. It is admired, indeed loved, by an appreciative and growing public. The tremendous response to the renovated park inspired Buffalo Bayou Partnership, the Houston non-profit leading the project, and catalyst funder the Kinder Foundation to produce From Rendering to Reality: The Story of Buffalo Bayou Park that showcases all the ideas and efforts that went into the realization of the renewed park. The book reveals more than 100 years of civic vision for Buffalo Bayou. The pages also feature spectacular photographs of Buffalo Bayou Park, historical images, and maps, along with fascinating insights into the thoughtful design and engineering efforts behind the park's success. From Rendering to Reality highlights the greenspace's enriched native landscape and wildlife habitat, its wide range of trail improvements, the creative lunar cycle lighting scheme, the multi-faceted destinations and their architectural considerations, plus major public art installations. Buffalo Bayou Park is truly a testament to the transformative role that greenspace can play in a twenty-first century city. Explore the park's journey in From Rendering to Reality.




Buffalo Master Plan


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New Buffalo Township Master Plan


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Master Plan


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Landscape Infrastructure


Book Description

Infrastructure is a much discussed topic within the field of landscape architecture. It regards the entire urban and rural space as a network that calls for an integrated planning and urban design approach. Natural and man-made infrastructures are viewed as forming a single, overarching whole. The book examines this robust and ecologically sustainable approach with essays by well-known experts in the field. It also documents 14 international case studies by SWA landscape architects and urban designers, among them the technologically innovative roof domes for Renzo Piano’s California Academy of Science in San Francisco, the restoration of the Buffalo Bayou in Houston, and several master plans for ecological corridors in China and Korea. Other projects develop smart re-use concepts for railroad tracks that no longer serve their original purpose, such as Kyung-Chun railway in Seoul or Katy Trail in Dallas. All projects are described extensively with technical diagrams and plans. The publication offers ideas for reinventing, repurposing, and repositioning infrastructure as a viable medium for addressing issues of ecology, transit, urbanism, and habitat.