TRANSFORMING PAVEMENT INTO A PARK

MIKYOUNG KIM DESIGN

••• URBAN DESIGN

A FEW MILES SOUTH OF DOWNTOWN HOUSTON, ON the site of what once was a Texas-size massive parking lot, a transformative urban development is taking shape. Helix Park is a 37-acre life-sciences campus that’s being built as part of the Texas Medical Center, the world’s largest medical complex. While the $5 billion project further expands the center’s acclaimed healthcare facilities, its biggest impact may lie between the buildings. Six public gardens are woven through the center of the site, increasing park space in this part of the city while improving its climate resilience. Arranged to mimic the double helix form of DNA, the gardens were designed by the Boston-based landscape architecture firm Mikyoung Kim Design and cover nearly a dozen acres in total. An accessible stream of water runs through them all. Water is a sensitive subject here. Located alongside Brays Bayou, the site has long been prone to flooding, and the design of the park was intended to celebrate the area’s connection to water while helping it withstand future deluges. The entire site of the project was raised an average of 5 feet, and a 3.2 million–gallon cistern has been placed beneath to capture water when extreme weather hits. Raising the site also creates a spongelike bed of soil in which more than 600 trees have been planted, along with gardens that represent the five main ecosystem types found across Texas. Instead of flooding the site, water will simply soak into it and enable the gardens to thrive. “Water is the string of the necklace, and these eco-regions are the pearls on that necklace,” says Mikyoung Kim, the firm’s founder. The first phase of the project was recently completed. The park space includes a mix of calming gardens intended to improve the experience of patients and caregivers at the medical center and more playful water-adjacent areas that can provide a cooling respite during Houston’s increasingly hot summers.

Double helix–inspired gardens form the central spine of a new lifesciences campus at the massive Texas Medical Center in Houston, balancing public access and climate resilience. 1 The six parks, each about an acre, feature native plantings that represent the five distinct eco-regions across Texas. 2 A streamlike water feature encourages calm for patients and personnel and splashy fun for kids.

Illustration by Kürşat Ünsal 3 Mikyoung Kim Design created benches beneath a tree canopy to keep visitors cool in Houston’s hot summers. 4 The site is designed to handle periodic flooding with a huge 3.2 million– gallon cistern below a parking garage. 5 Soil was added to raise the site 5 feet above the 500-year floodplain, creating beds for over 600 mature trees. 6 The entire 37-acre campus, formerly a parking lot, now offers 11 acres of publicly accessible open space.