Issue link: https://tmcpulse.uberflip.com/i/1010198
10 T M C » P U L S E | A U G U S T 2 0 1 8 Fox, who lectures at Rice University School of Architecture and the Gerald D. Hines College of Architecture and Design at the University of Houston, said that Corner's expertise is asking basic questions—before even choosing a piece of property—to identify different goals and how to achieve them. It may be a challenge to awaken the area around TMC 3 , Fox added, because it is more of a business destination at the moment. A similar challenge faced designers of another Houston park. In 2008, Houston opened Discovery Green, a public space that has been embraced by the city and might well offer lessons for Corner and his team. Discovery Green's location—on the east side of downtown by the George R. Brown Convention Center—was in a particularly sleepy part of the city that didn't have much going on, said Mary Margaret Jones, lead designer for Discovery Green and senior principal at New York-based Hargreaves Jones Landscape Architecture DPC. But as developers broke ground on the project, Discovery Green became a driver for social and economic change in that area. In essence, the 12-acre urban park has been "a great success story," Jones said. Built on a series of parking lots, Discovery Green now attracts about 1 million visitors annually. "Discovery Green was a foothold for a green oasis with the knowledge that buildings around it would be developed," she said. "It was built as a catalyst for change, intended to spur development." When designing the park, Jones, who grew up in Baytown, took into account the "tentacles of green" that would connect it to the bayous, to the walkway under the freeway into emerging neigh- borhoods to the east, and to the Hilton Americas- Houston and Minute Maid Park. Envisioning what people might like in a park is a constant challenge for landscape architects, Jones said. "How do you create a green space that can evolve over time, combined with things people want to do, especially when that changes over time?" she said. "Striking a balance is important." Outdoor spaces must contain the right mix of elements, Jones added. The obvious musts are restaurants and bathrooms, but the key is to bal- ance those items with retail and other attractions. "If there is too much retail in a park, you lose the value of the park," she said. "That is the cautionary tale. You need some space that is simple and allows people to breathe and find their thoughts." The Texas Medical Center's whole mission statement is about global health and well-being. We spent a lot of time thinking about what this might mean in terms of a program for this rooftop and sequence of spaces. Instead of just making a nice-looking place with plants and somewhere to sit, how could we actually have invitations embedded that invite new kinds of use? — JAMES CORNER Landscape architect James Corner Field Operations led the design of the High Line in New York City. Credit: Iwan Baan/ Courtesy of High Line