Park Topography below left Park Topography below right

Park Topography below

Sectional Openings Above

The undulating landscape shafts rise up to create a real topography for the city of Houston, which is an active landscape for children to play upon.

The phased planting and “letting go” will mean some areas are more planted than others over time, and the garden will be allowed to run wild, creating “islands of wild pleasure.” Houston is still a city which drives and parks. By using

parking entrances to channel prevailing winds sectionally, additional cooling zones provide a secondary method for strategically placing programs. Strategically placing lightwells into the ground will

adequately illuminate the underground parking basement, allowing the city to reduce lighting and energy consumption costs of the park.

Houston proposed a new central park space located downtown, next to the convention center and basketball arena. As Mayor Bill White put it, “Great cities preserve land for public plazas, parks, and gathering places for the future. We now have an opportunity - probably our last opportunity as a city - to create a place like that for us in Houston’s central core.”

Comfort Zones - reimagines a public park for Houston, attempting to prevent the park from being merely another windswept lacuna in the landscape, devoid of events or people because the desire to make public space no longer coincides with the consuming subject’s wants or roles.

Initial COSMOS research involved strategically placing forms on the site, testing how the prevailing winds might react to those forms to strategically cool certain areas. This allowed us to locate programs on the site which depended upon greater levels of human comfort in Houston’s hot, humid climate

Initial research involved proto-testing of climactic and environmental conditions on the site using heat and fluid flow analysis software. Configuration and form of elements within the park were designed to passively engage the prevailing winds to cool the park.

The park was also designed to grow over time, saving money on initial construction. By using the prevailing winds to channel plant seeds in specific directions, the park could dynamically grow itself into a wild urban landscape, which would challenge the conventional notions of park design today.

Using natural and guided wind to disperse the plants also allowed for the most optimal plant dispersal pattern for reducing irrigation on the site. A park will ideally require the least amount of resources and energy while providing the greatest amount of benefit to the public.

Plant Dispersal Diagram:

Plant Disperal Diagram: Vent Dispersal Diagram

Program

Partners Eric Hughes, Maria Gabriela Flores, Matthew Geiger

24 Comfort Zones: Aeolian Processing www.jonathanlarocca.com Comfort Zones: Aeolian Processing 25www.jonathanlarocca.com

Comfort Zones: Aeolian ProcessingSchool:Date:Professor:Program:

Rice School Of ArchitectureSpring 2005Christopher HightPark/Public Space Design