“For the past 50 years, Austin’s Waller Creek and Dallas’s Trinity River have become what Brent Brown describes as ‘sumps’ serving the singular purpose of collecting run-off and whisking the water away from the city centers as quickly as possible. ”

Texas cities are redefining their relationship with urban watersheds. Recently the Dallas Center for Architecture brought together experts from Austin and Dallas to hold a panel discussion titled “Revitalizing Flood Plains as Public Spaces.” The panel, moderated by Cathrine Gavin, editor of Texas Architecture magazine, included Stephanie Lee McDonald, Executive Director of the Waller Creek Conservancy, Brent Brown, founder of buildingcommunity Workshop (bcWorkshop), and Willis Winters, assistant director for the Dallas Park and Recreation Department. The discussion centered on strategies and challenges involved in transforming neglected and disconnected watersheds into destinations that can enhance and transform urban centers.

For the past 50 years, Austin’s Waller Creek and Dallas’s Trinity River have become what Brent Brown describes as ‘sumps’ serving the singular purpose of collecting run-off and whisking the water away from the city centers as quickly as possible. The neglected and ignored watersheds have lost much their ability to perform ecological, social, and economic functions. In the 1920’s the Trinity River was moved and straightened, thereby removing the meanders and disrupting the existing ecosystem. In Austin, Waller Creek remained underdeveloped due to dangerous floods that can transform the gently flowing creek into an 800 ft. wide raging river. Downtown businesses and residences turned their back to the creek, leaving a corridor that has been scoured of sediment and attracts undesirable activity due to the isolation. As Stephanie McDonald mentioned, if you find yourself in the Waller Creek corridor you’re probably doing something you shouldn't be.

Both projects have the ambitious goal of revitalizing the ecological, social, and economic systems of the urban core; however, the strategies to achieve these goals are much different. The Waller Creek Conservancy is tasked with redeveloping 28 acres along a 1.5 mile stretch of the creek that flows between IH-35 and downtown. The redevelopment’s success relies on a 1 mile long, 28 ft. diameter tunnel that collects flood water upstream of the newly established district and moves the water under the city into Lady Bird Lake preventing extensive flooding and opening up the area for development. Additionally, the tunnel will allow water from Lady Bird Lake to be pumped back upstream during periods of drought to maintain constant flow, ultimately reestablishing healthy ecological systems while serving as a city amenity.

Waller Creek Existing Conditions. Photo via Flickr: micklpickl — Waller Creek Existing Conditions. Photo via Flickr: micklpickl

In contrast, the Trinity River Corridor Project encompasses a stretch of the river that is 20 miles long and approximately 10,000 acres in size. This large expanse of space allows for a strategy that will reintroduce the meanders to the river restoring a more natural water course that will reduce erosion, slow sediment flow, and promote a healthy ecosystem. The wide river corridor also offers an opportunity to connect the city through a network of bike and pedestrian paths with diverse programs that promote recreation, education, and preservation dispersed throughout the flood plain.

These ambitious plans require significant planning and consensus. The panel acknowledged the necessity for the parks to serve the current needs of the cities while still being agile enough to adapt to future unknown variables that arise as the urban cores evolve. Patience and a long term vision are essential as the success of these strategies will be measured over decades and even centuries to come.

Cartagena Auditorium, photograph by Iwan Baan

Spanish architect Jose Selgas' creations are vulgar.

(His words, not mine.)

Eliciting a nervous laugh from the studio audience, the self-deprecating humor of the co-principal of the innovative firm Selgas+Cano (along with Lucia Cano) is only matched by the simple brilliance of his constructions. Presenting his firm's work and philosophy as a part of the Dallas Architecture Forum's lecture series, Selgas at first apologized for his poor English and then proceeded to speak near-perfect English throughout the presentation.

Selgas+Cano, perhaps most famous for designing and constructing their own unique 'office in the woods' (it's actually on a large residential lot), is focused on creating an architecture that is immediately accessible and beautiful to the common man or layperson. Selgas self-identifies as vulgar not in the sense of being rude or tasteless, but in the sense of identifying with the common man and the singular individual. Rather than starting with simplicity as a baseline and building complexity from there, S+C uses beauty that the layperson can understand as an ultimate goal of their built work.

The lecture, co-sponsored by Studio Outside, quickly made its relevance to landscape architecture known. With all of their projects, Selgas+Cano strives not only to work with the land and the topography, but allows the natural surroundings to shape the architecture absolutely. This is most notable in their Silicon House, the form of which was decided by the topography of the site as well as the existing vegetation, both large and small. Selgas shows rare deference to the natural characteristics of a site yet his creations enhance the landscape in which they are situated.

Silicon House, 2006. Photograph by Iwan Baan

“This is an allotment on a gentle slope covered by evergreen oak, elm, ash, acacia, prunus and plane trees, all seeded spontaneously by birds from the surrounding plots. All of these trees and their canopy perimeters were measured and drawn on to plan. Le Corbusier said he wanted the empty La Tourette courtyard to be populated naturally with vegetation, by birds and the wind. Le Corbusier left a void in his architecture to be populated by nature. We think this project has arisen in opposition to that idea.”

— Jose Selgas via ArchDaily

The concept of change over time plays a very important role in S+C's work, as well, just as it does in nature. The Silicon House is designed to gradually become more and more hidden by the vegetation, turning an embedded, multi-layered abode into a contemporary version of a hobbit hole (albeit far more fashionable). Large windows out to the nature bring to mind Corbusier's residential constructions, which inevitably encased the boxed home in floor-to ceiling of glass. While Corbusier's homes are reminiscent of a human terrarium through which nature could observe its curious human pets, Selgas does a better job of balancing the roles of nature and its hominid cohabitants.

“Nature has left us a gap and here, only here, can we populate it with something that is architecture, because it is rational. We agree with la Tourette, however, that neither camouflage nor integration nor what is called “ organic architecture “ have ever really been sought. The house adapts by pure opposition. In Italy, some of the motorway bridges are painted sky blue. An innocent, sweet camouflage that only works as expected on a few days and at certain moments, yet we find it most beautiful on the days when you can actually see the trick. The ultimate purpose is (it would be an exaggeration to say “always”)whatever is admired.”

— Jose Selgas via ArchDaily

Ultimately it is the sense that the architecture of Jose Selgas is honest that gives it wide appeal, perhaps even appeal to the vulgar masses. Such as myself. I suppose I could also say that he is down to earth, which in his case could be true in multiple senses of the word. Just take a look at his Madrid office (or atelier, which sounds infinitely cooler to me) to see what I mean: