Landscape Architect Articles

Houston's Memorial Park Announces Landscape Architecture Lead09-18-13 | News

Houston's Memorial Park Announces Landscape Architecture Lead

Memorial Park's master plan envisions Houston's foremost natural wooded bayou park as a refuge from intense urbanization, and a living model of sustainable green space to recreate with and in nature.

About four million Houstonians visit Memorial Park each year, with about 10,000 people making daily use of the Seymour-Leiberman Exer-Trail (20 miles worth). People love the park's wooded character, enjoy playing the golf course, practicing their strokes on the tennis courts, taking a swim, cycling, walking or bird watching, to name a few activities.

Memorial Park encompasses 1,500 acres, which is larger than New York City's Central Park. It was originally the site of a WWI training camp called Logan. The property was purchased by the Hogg family, but sold to the city at cost in 1925. Under the transfer agreement, the city agreed to use the land for park purposes only. The park today represents a little over seven percent of Houston's parkland, with an estimated value near $1 billion.

However, the Memorial Park Conservancy (MPC) knows the park has seen better days. First, there has been decades of wear and tear; then there was the devastating drought in 2011, coupled with record-high temperatures, which took a dramatic toll on the park's pine canopy and many older oaks. The state of the park trees prompted MPC to begin planning on the planting of new native trees and vegetation to sustain the forest for future generations of Houstonians.

MPC needed a master plan to ensure that the increasing pressure to add more facilities to the park would be well-thought out and reasoned. That plan was prepared by Wallace Roberts & Todd, LLC, Planning and Landscape Architecture prepared a master plan, in association with Knudson & Associates (landscape architecture), Berg Oliver Associates (environmental resources), Mussetter Engineering, VIVITech Engineering, Parsons (transportation engineering) and Applied Geomatics International (surveying).

About a year ago, the Conservancy formed a committee to conduct a nationwide search for a landscape architect to overhaul the park. Now, in the second week of September, it has announced that landscape architect Thomas Woltz will lead the project. Thomas Woltz, FASLA, CLARB, is the owner of Nelson Byrd Woltz Landscape Architects, with offices in New York City.