Stretching 35 miles from the mouth of the Houston Ship Channel westward through residential, commercial and institutional developments, Brays Bayou is one of the most important waterways in Harris County, and a critical link in the area’s watershed. The $450-million project was first established in the early 2000s, with the goal of mitigating flood damage. Initially, SWA was charged with increasing the existing channel’s capacity and developing design guidelines for architectural and open space character throughout the corridor.
The initial Brays Greenway Framework identified a broad set of recreational and open-space opportunities for target programs from its mouth at Buffalo Bayou (the Ship Channel) to the Barker Reservoir (George Bush Park) in the west. Comprehensive implementation of program elements eventually led to a vision for the greenway that moved beyond its individual components toward the creation of a cherished regional waterway that also acts as a flood-damage-reduction project, protecting homes, businesses, and institutions. Strategies included channel widening and regional detention basins, which laid the groundwork for recreation improvements within the channel’s right-of-way. SWA’s recommendations encompassed land acquisition strategies, bridge constructions/enhancements, trail construction, landscaping, and other amenities.
SWA worked with a large team of specialists researching funding mechanisms, organizational structures, community coalitions, design concepts, property acquisition, and surplus property, among other strategies. Partners included universities, parks departments, green space advocacy groups, and private companies, with whom SWA worked in concert toward providing access, recreation, and connection for the entire length of the Bayou.
Exploration Green
As climate threats escalate, cities face the challenge of protecting their residents from the devastating impacts of intensifying storms and flooding. For Houston, a city all too familiar with the destructive power of hurricanes, Exploration Green enhances community resilience by converting a 178-acre defunct golf course into a multifunctional green space.
...Sims Bayou
The story of Sims Bayou is based on a large vision. The project is the first step in implementing a long-range plan for watershed greenbelts in the Houston region, a comprehensive system which addresses the potential for parks, wildlife habitat, and economic real estate revitalization while also controlling flooding. The Sims Bayou project has profoundly chang...
Milton Street Park
Milton Street Park is a 1.2-acre linear urban park alongside the Ballona Creek Bike Trail in Los Angeles, California. The plan incorporates numerous green-design elements, including the use of recycled materials, native planting, flow-through planters and treatment alongside the 1,000-foot-long, 45-foot-wide stretch of land. A variety of special elements such...
Changsha Baxizhou Island
Over many decades, public agencies in China have sought to solve growing flooding issues in a defensive way: fortifying and hardening river edges, raising levee heights, and ultimately separating the people from historical connections to the water. With an understanding of river flow processes and volumes and of wetland and native forest ecology, this separati...