DETAILS
Prior to construction of this Brays Bayou feature, road and rail infrastructure had conspired with the waterway to sever connectivity between parks and surrounding neighborhoods. The Mason Park Pedestrian Bridge, part of a larger effort including trails, seating plazas, lighting, and planting, connects the north and south parts of the City of Houston’s Mason Park. The bridge provides important pedestrian connectivity between the two park areas, as well as a return crossing for cyclists using the lower Brays Bayou trail system. Essentially, the bridge allows cyclists to ride down one side of the bayou and back up the other.
This signature bridge is a cable-stayed, truss-decked structure designed in three spans to accommodate the width of the bayou. Despite several design and planning constraints, the bridge is integrated seamlessly into existing park features and plantings.
Buffalo Bayou Smith to Travis Streets Trail Segment
This effort in Downtown Houston extends the Buffalo Bayou trail system eastward with the Smith to Travis Trail, connecting two historically significant sites: Sesquicentennial Park and Allen’s Landing, where the city was founded. It is a technically challenging segment located twenty feet below street level that traverses under multiple roadway bridges crossin...
Ningbo East New Town Eco-Corridor
SWA provided planning and design services for the 3.3km long, 250-acre metropolitan Ningbo Eco-Corridor, which transforms a former agricultural plain that had been taken over by industrial use into urban green infrastructure. Located in the heart of the Yangtze River Delta on China’s coastline, Ningbo is one of China’s oldest cities, with an area of 3,616 squa...
Houston Green Loop
With the coming expansion and realignment of the highways around Downtown Houston, SWA identified the opportunity to enact a bold vision: a multi-use branded connectivity system that will leverage the immense reconstruction investment. SWA’s concept creates a continuous pedestrian loop over, under, and around the downtown highway system, thus redirecting the u...
Hunter's Point South Waterfront Park
Hunter’s Point South Waterfront Park was envisioned as an international model of urban ecology and a world laboratory for innovative sustainable thinking. The project is a collaboration between Thomas Balsley Associates and WEISS/MANFREDI for the open space and park design with ARUP as the prime consultant and infrastructure designer.
What was once a ba...