kinder baumgardner

Sitting just north of Allen’s Landing, near the confluence of the White Oak and Buffalo bayous and bisected by two major roadways and rail lines, lies Houston’s historic Warehouse District. It’s situated close enough to downtown to be considered one of its ten districts, yet its unique location, obscured by layers of both manmade and… Read more »

The Warehouse District has become home to an ever-increasing mix of residents and businesses—from art studios, eateries, and music venues to bail bonds brokers, cross-fit gyms, and breweries. This mash-up of eclectic inhabitants only serves to confirm Houston’s reputation for being one of the most diverse melting pots of culture and industry in the United States today. Unlike more “civilized” parts of the city, where you’ll be greeted by valet service upon arrival at the latest culinary hot spot, here you’ll find one of Houston’s most critically acclaimed restaurants, Oxheart, next door to a tattoo parlor. To say this place is understated in its external appearance is, well, definitely an understatement. There isn’t even a sign out front with the restaurant’s name on it, just a number painted on the door of what looks like an abandoned building or maybe a speakeasy. This lack of concern with putting on a pretty face to impress its visitors is a reoccurring theme seen throughout the district and goes to show that you really can’t judge a book by its cover here. Underneath this industrial skin of distressed brick, sheet metal, and peeling paint resides one of the most overlooked and vibrant enclaves of creativity within the city.

In a bold move to reflect this district’s unique character, the Houston Arts Alliance and the City of Houston Parking Management recently teamed up to spearhead what has now become the first commissioned art installment in the nation to replace the typically mundane parking meters dotting its streets. One such example looks as if it’s being blown sideways by wind, defying the laws of gravity, while another is more whimsical in nature, resembling an old gumball machine dispensing brass acorns that have spilled out onto the street below.

So what does all this have to do with landscape architecture? As one of SWA’s staff photographers I was tasked with the job of documenting this quirky urban landscape in its natural state, with the goal of helping to inform the design thinking incorporated into the master plan being developed for the district. The big idea for us at SWA was to hopefully preserve the district’s iconoclastic heritage and funky feel, while also improving its overall walkability and connectivity to the rest of the city.

Kinder Baumgardner, SWA President and Managing Principal of the Houston office, said it best while giving me a tour of the site: “It’s about how NOT to take something good and mess it up.” I’m a lover of abstraction, raw beauty, and grit in my own personal photographic work, so this assignment really resonated with my artistic sensibilities. The images I captured are mostly vertical in orientation on purpose and are meant to serve as a “portrait of a place,” so to speak. Through the careful framing of these vignettes, I hoped to not only distill the essence of what makes this district special, but also to speak of a place which was only made possible by the sum of its many diverse faces. The challenge still remains, how can we successfully redevelop this neighborhood while keepin’ the funk alive?

Watch the slideshow now.

All images are by Jonnu Singleton.

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Posted by Jonnu Singleton
in Arts and Culture, Community, Social Impact
on 25 August, 2014

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What if the Keystone XL Pipeline project wasn’t a black-or-white issue? In our Houston office, we’ve been hearing a lot about both sides of the Pipeline debate—and after several in-office conversations earlier this year about the efficacy of the project, we started thinking: what could be done to make this project better? What would a… Read more »

Infrastructure projects are rarely black and white issues. So many failed infrastructural projects across the US have been too unilaterally (narrowly) focused on solving a singular problem (moving water, moving cars, efficiency), without remembering all of the other layers of development that are often working in concert with the development within the same space. People need space to ride bikes, walk, move; etc. This idea—“Landscape Infrastructure”—that the design and creation of landscape architectural and infrastructural projects can have multifaceted benefits while still solving infrastructural problems—is one of our key tenants in our firm.

So, how would we address the landscape of the Keystone XL Pipeline? In a somewhat tongue-in-cheek proposal, we thought that if they are going to develop 5000 miles of infrastructure, we might get 5000 miles of bike paths out of the project.

One of the really interesting things about the attention this project has received recently (on NBC, Current TV and Fast Company) is the fact that this project isn’t a client-led project. One of the things that’s really important to remember as an ideas-driven firm is that as we’re brainstorming and developing creative solutions to client-driven projects, we’re also being looked at to provide new and fresh ideas to our clients and colleagues. We need to make time to develop these ideas, even if it’s during our weekly happy hour, or through more formal pin-ups.

Infrastructure and the redevelopment (and our need to rethink and reimagine all the ways it can serve our communities) is something our firm has done for a long time, and will continue to be an issue we need to address as we see more and more of the 20^th century projects become derelict. There’s a project that we’re dealing with in Atlanta—the interstate 85/75 corridor, that we’re taking and turning into Freeway Art. This derelict infrastructure that no one wants anything to do with—we’re looking at how you can turn around the idea of a freeway and make it a place for art. And in Los Angeles, we spent a lot of time re-imagining a concrete-channel as a new piece of community infrastructure—with bike paths and green edges. Across the nation, the US is looking at how to re-use or re-imagine many existing pieces; it’s not carte blanche development of cities like what’s happening on the other side of the world. Projects like Sands Bethworks, a re-design of an old steel mill in Bethlehem, PA, points to the ways that landscape architects and designers can re-think existing infrastructure and make new places out of existing materials and spaces.

It’s the same for the Pipeline project—if it’s going to be built—then as designers, we’ve got to challenge the concept and say, well, we want something in return. We want something better from it.

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One Response to “When Infrastructure Isn’t Just Black And White: Imagining Better Alternatives for the Keystone XL Pipeline”

Louis Zimmerman

I really like this idea. As a person who has walked the Coast to Coast Wainwright Trail across Northern England and am familiar with other English Trail Systems I think the presence of such a path could be a tourism boon for small towns along the path much as those paths have been for small English villages. Interpretive sites are an unnecessary expense because over time guide books would develop. Making the trip would be a challenge and people like challenges.
October 31st, 2013 Reply