2024 Class of Fellows, J. Rebecca Leonard, FASLA, Texas Chapter

Lionheart Places, Austin, TX
by Lionheart Places

Texas Chapter - Category: Works

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Texas Chapter - Category: Works

Rebecca Leonard's work is distinguished by her focus on large-scale projects that seamlessly blend planning, urban design, and landscape architecture. Her extraordinary ability to collaborate with allied professionals and take a project from initial vision to implementation has elevated landscape architecture to a leading role in complex projects, and resulted in more than 60 national, state, regional, and local awards. Leonard's professional excellence, integrity, and dedication to promoting ecological, social, and cultural awareness through landscape architecture is a hallmark of her work and her firm, Lionheart Places. Her impact in Houston cannot be understated. For example, over the past 15 years, she has led Midtown's two updates to the strategic plan; two updates to the Parks and Public Spaces Master Plan and the development of Midtown Park, a world-class award-winning park on a previously vacant superblock; and the Houston Arboretum and Nature Center's Master Plan, which resulted in the transformation of a 155-acre arboretum and introduced and restored ecosystems, created pedagogical landscapes, and established climate change resiliency. In Austin, she has been leading the vision, master plan, entitlements, and phasing of the $1 billion Brodie Oaks Retail Center Redevelopment, transforming a 38-acre, 1980s-era retail center into a transit-oriented, mixed-use area with a third of the site dedicated to open space. Leonard's portfolio also includes the Lafitte Greenway Master Plan and Corridor Revitalization Plan, which changed an abandoned industrial landscape and brownfield devastated by Hurricane Katrina into a beloved public space through integrating green infrastructure, public art, and strong public engagement.