BUFFALO BAYOU PARTNERSHIP NOW LOOKING EAST OF DOWNTOWN, MAKING PLANS 
The landscape architecture firm that rejiggered the grounds of the Menil Collection and has put forward a new plan for Hermann Park will now be turning its attention to Buffalo Bayou east of Downtown, where the waterway widens ahead of the Houston Ship Channel and Galveston Bay. Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates will lead an effort to create a new master plan for the bayou’s “East Sector” — the section between Hwy. 59 and the Turning Basin — the Buffalo Bayou Partnership announced yesterday. Also on the team of consultants the nonprofit waterway overseers has selected to create the plan: the firm formerly known as Morris Architects, which a few months ago switched its name to that of its parent company, Huitt-Zollars. The partnership says it wants a plan that reflects the cultural and industrial background of the area, that will help connect surrounding neighborhoods to the bayou, and that creates green spaces that can help revitalize that part of Houston. [Buffalo Bayou Partnership] Photo: Buffalo Bayou Partnership
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Tag: Landscape
GRASSY KNOLLS, CHILDREN’S SWAMP PART OF POSSIBLE HERMANN PARK PARKING COVERUP 
This week landscape architect Michael Van Valkenburgh has been discussing some of his firm’s preliminary designs for the next 20-year master plan for Hermann Park, writes Molly Glentzer this afternoon — including the possibility of turning the park’s central parking area, between Miller Outdoor Theatre and the Houston Zoo, into “a place where children could scamper up a knoll to a creature forest, swings and a marsh,” with parking spaces underneath. Van Valkenburgh says that a few hundred of the 1,300 spaces in the main lots may also be moved to the corner of MacGregor and Cambridge streets, and would also be covered over by ecological and built attractions. Glentzer writes that “along with the forest and marsh, the preliminary drawings for the central knoll include a sensory maze, a desert ruin and a slide bluff. The smaller knoll would have a water play dell.” [Houston Chronicle; previously on Swamplot] Map of existing Hermann Park layout: Hermann Park Conservancy
Sure, drone footage is great. But how often do you get to see 3 flying laboratories survey the breadth of Houston’s sprawl from this high up?
The trio of WB-57s shown surveying a hazy Houston in the video above are based at Ellington Field. The fleet is part of NASA’s WB-57 High Altitude Research Program, which regularly conducts scientific research and testing. Among its missions: mapping, collection of cosmic dust, support of rocket launches, and flights over hurricanes, including recent storms Joaquin and Patricia. Eerie faded-Emerald-City scenes of Downtown, the Galleria, the Med Center, and other vertical standouts unfold beneath the wingtips. The flight, which took place before Thanksgiving (but for which footage was only posted to YouTube this week) marks the first time since the early 1970s that 3 WB-57s have flown together.
Video: Johnson Space Center via Eric Berger
JSC Fleet in Flight
- 6 Skyflower Dr. [HAR]
DUTCH MUSEUM EMBRACED BY ITS SWAMPY SURROUNDINGS Meanwhile, in Werkendam: The Biesbosch Museum in the Netherlands now appears to have merged with the extensive wetlands of the surrounding national park, following renovations this summer that blanketed the building’s sloping exterior with grass and herbs. The new vegetation flows directly into the landscape of the Museum’s created island (developed as part of the extensive “Room for the River” initiative, meant to address severe flooding in areas of the low-lying nation). The Museum’s new exterior creates the illusion that sections of the landscape have been peeled up to form the building’s wedge-shaped exhibition spaces. [Dezeen]
- 9334 Kai Dr. [HAR]
COMMENT OF THE DAY: WHY YOU CAN GET FLOOD INSURANCE IN HOUSTON 
“There is no market at all for flood insurance. It’s a massive federal subsidy that is merely administered by private companies.
You can’t effectively insure against floods.
This is one of those things many Texans like to ignore — that our coastal development is highly subsidized in the form of the government-backed NFIP.” [JR, commenting on Comment of the Day: A Better Way To Tell If Your Home Is Going to Flood] Illustration: Lulu
AND NOW A DOWNTOWN DANCE PERFORMANCE ABOUT FLOODING Invitations to the latest site-specific performance by the Karen Stokes Dance company went out on May 25th, the day before a good part of Houston woke up to find various areas in and around the city under water. But the company had already been rehearsing its latest work for some time by then. Coincidence, fortunate timing, or simply a local arts group’s demonstration of a level-headed understanding of the Houston landscape? From the team that brought you last year’s by-the-Ship-Channel performance of Channel/1836 now comes Drench, which — as shown in excerpts previewed in the trailer video above — reimagines Discovery Green’s Gateway Fountain as a flood zone. Shows, part of a performance that includes the work of Belgian art group Chanson d’Eau, begin at 8 pm tonight and tomorrow. [Discovery Green; more info] Video: Karen Stokes Dance
Landscape crews last week chopped down 16 live oak trees lining the west side of Yale St. just south of White Oak, along the eastern border of the second of Trammell Crow Residential’s Alexan Heights apartment complexes. A similar scene took place last year in front of the Alexan Heights north of White Oak and 6th St. (at right in the above photo).
A reader sent in pics of the recent street-tree sawfest:
Chop ’n Plant
The sixth and last of the replacement street trees was planted in the public right-of-way surrounding the Wendy’s drive-thru at 5003 Kirby Dr. over the weekend. “It is a big specimen tree, taller than what was removed,” writes the reader who sent in these photos of the installation paid for by a special city fund for Houston parks — so we can all see for ourselves. The previous weekend, 5 replacement oaks were put in along the side street, North Blvd. Crews hired by the franchise owner, Mohammed Ali Dhanani of Haza Foods, had chopped down 6 trees on adjacent city property last October. You can compare the current scene in these photos and in our story last week with how it all looked before the chainsaws were fired up.
Regrowth
A row of 5 already-growed-up oak trees took up their new home along the North Blvd. flank of the Wendy’s drive-thru at 5003 Kirby Dr. last weekend, to replace the same number along the public right-of-way that went missing after dark last Halloween on account of they were chopped into pieces by order of the franchise owner. “The new trees at Wendy’s are so big they had to close the road to install them,” writes the reader who sent in these photos. “. . . almost as big as the ones cut down.”
One more tree is still to come — for this spot on Kirby Dr., right in front:
Fast Landscaping
COMMENT OF THE DAY: WHY THEY WON’T BE LINING POST OAK BLVD. WITH POST OAKS 
“So close! Just imagine how impressive it would be to have a forest of 800 post oaks on Post Oak Blvd. Unfortunately, post oaks don’t tend to transplant well compared to live oaks, which is why we use live oaks in our landscaping instead of post oaks. (Source: Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center)” [GoogleMaster, commenting on Boxed Forest of 800 Trees in Tomball Preparing for March Down Post Oak Blvd.] Illustration: Lulu
Here are pics of some of the clearing work PM Realty Group has been orchestrating along the south side of I-10 between Eldridge and Hwy. 6. The company bought the headquarters of the ExxonMobil Chemical Company at 13501 Katy Fwy. in late 2013, and announced plans for a mixed-use development including office towers, apartments, a hotel, a fitness center, restaurants, and convenience retail” on the 35-acre site. ExxonMobil was scheduled to exit the building (pictured below) this year:
Scrubbing ExxonChemical
- 3002 Lakes of Katy Ln. [HAR]
Over at the south end of Buffalo Speedway below West Bellfort, land is being cleared for a new development, these pics from last week show. The view is over the back fence of the 3-year-old Connection at Buffalo Pointe apartments, at 10201 Buffalo Speedway. A reader tells Swamplot some sort of permit document seen on the property labels it the Reserves at Buffalo Point. In a view over the fence but looking a little bit more to the east, most of the trees are still there — for now:
Buffalo Lakes
