UX of a Restored Landscape

WorkUniversity of Pennsylvania · San Antonio, Texas

UX of a Restored Landscape: a San Antonio Park

A channelized creek on San Antonio’s west side, restored as a park for people, habitat and floodwater

Birdseye view of the proposed park along Zarzamora Creek, in color against a grey West San Antonio, with downtown on the horizon — San Antoni[ooz]: the proposed park along Zarzamora Creek, with downtown San Antonio on the horizon. Base imagery: Google Earth

Project snapshot

My contribution

Role

Chose the site and developed the proposal, from the city-scale analysis and strategy to the site design and its illustrations

Studio

MLA 702, a Master of Landscape Architecture studio at PennDesign, University of Pennsylvania, Spring 2016 • critics Lucinda Sanders, Trevor Lee and Michael Miller

Scope

Analysis of the West Side Creeks • a deployable strategy for them • the design of 1.3 miles of Zarzamora Creek

Tools

AutoCAD, Rhino 3D, 3ds Max, Photoshop, Illustrator, After Effects, Google Earth

Project details

Location: West Side, San Antonio, Texas
Site: 1.3 miles of Zarzamora Creek
Institution: University of Pennsylvania (PennDesign)
Studio: MLA 702, Spring 2016
Project type: Park · ecological and flood infrastructure
Status: Studio proposal

00 Overview

Between 1957 and 1998, San Antonio straightened and channelized its west side creeks to prevent flooding. The channels no longer do that job, and they wiped out the ecology around them. The neighborhoods along them, predominantly Hispanic and Latino, still flood in heavy rain and are underserved by basic social and ecological amenities.

In a spring 2016 studio at the University of Pennsylvania, I proposed San Antoni[ooz]: 1.3 miles of Zarzamora Creek, about five miles west of downtown, restored as a park that interweaves habitat and community and gives floodwater room. The approach is a deployable strategy, designed as a prototype for the rest of the West Side Creeks.

01 The idea

A mythical place that represents danger

San Antonio’s communities seldom think about their creeks or use them. San Antoni[ooz] sets out to challenge the notion that the creeks are inaccessible and dangerous, in a city with a long history of living with its water.

The proposal opens new ways for the community to meet the creeks: their ecology, their recreation, and the water that is the essence of the city. In a storm, the same park holds the flood.

The name reads zoo backward. In the [ooz], the community meets wildlife in the creeks and learns from it.

Before and during the storm: the site today, the proposed park, and the park in a 100-year flood. Base imagery: Google Earth

FIG. 01Before and during the storm: the site today, the proposed park, and the park in a 100-year flood. Base imagery: Google Earth

02 Site

From west to east

San Antonio’s north–south corridor along the San Antonio River, built around tourism and downtown redevelopment, is established. This project makes the case for a west–east one, along the city’s West Side Creeks.

A west–east link: a line of creeks in black running across the west side to meet the north–south San Antonio River corridor in grey — A west–east link

Site location: the Zarzamora Creek site in pink, on a five-mile radius from downtown San Antonio — A west–east link

West Side Creeks

San Antonio is committed to water conservation and flood prevention, but that effort has focused on downtown, leaving the communities to the west underserved.

03 Water

Channelized, and still flooding

The city straightened the natural creeks and lined them with concrete to prevent flooding from storms. Downtown San Antonio no longer floods. The west side often does.

In their current form the creeks are desolate, a no-man’s land cut off from their communities physically and psychologically.

Historic conditions: archival photographs of flood debris on Alazan Creek, and of a creek cut into a straight channel — Historic conditions

Existing conditions: four photographs of the creeks today, in concrete and grass-lined channels behind fences and walls — Historic conditions

175+flood events recorded in San Antonio from 2000 through 2013, an average of 13 a yearMost of them on the west side

West Side Creeks, flood events: four photographs of people in floodwater, on a flooded street, a ballfield and a highway — Flood events

04 People and ecology

Where people live, where the parks are

West San Antonio, where most of the floods happen, is predominantly Hispanic and Latino. The map sets where people live against where the public green space is.

West San Antonio’s population as dots, one for every 25 people, Hispanic residents in orange, over the creeks and public green space — West San Antonio: one dot for every 25 people; orange dots are Hispanic residents

Native ecology

Historically, west San Antonio was Blackland Prairie: clumps of woodland, tall grasslands and meadows, and abundant streams.

The Blackland Prairie: four photographs of meadow, wildflowers, a woodland edge and tall grass — The Blackland Prairie

Impervious surface and green cover

As San Antonio grew, urbanization disturbed those systems, created many of today’s flood hazards and spurred the channelization of the creeks. Impervious development, which keeps rain from recharging the water table, now outweighs vegetative cover, so rain events end in floods.

The Blackland Prairie, impervious: the west side mapped by ground cover, with the site in pink — Impervious surface

The Blackland Prairie, vegetative cover: tree canopy across the same extent, with the site in pink — Impervious surface

05 Larger strategy

A natural link through the city

The larger strategy proposes naturalizing the creek channels where they pass undeveloped or underdeveloped parcels, creating a resilient open space that can help reduce flood risk.

With public access and room for program, the naturalized creeks become a link: an element that runs continuously through San Antonio’s urban fabric.

Larger strategy: open space and undeveloped parcels along the West Side Creeks — Open space and undeveloped parcels

Larger strategy: open space as a link, a main spine running west to east with secondary corridors, parcels in the primary spine, secondary spines and the FEMA 100-year flood zone — Open space and undeveloped parcels

Program needs

Once the creeks connect, the question is what their communities need. Mapping parks, playgrounds, community centers and educational facilities against the creeks, each with its walking radius, showed where new ones could go along them.

Six maps of the west side: the 100-year flood zone, vegetative cover, and existing and proposed parks, playgrounds, community centers and educational facilities, each with its walking radius — FIG. 10Identifying program needs: existing facilities in grey, proposed in red

06 Design strategy

Open at the edge, intimate at the creek

At a smaller scale, the design strategy sets up conditions for program, vegetation and water: a prototype meant to be repeated along the rest of the West Side Creeks.

Closer to the community edge, the space is open, active and safe from floods. Nearer the creek it becomes intimate and exploratory, and water is free to flood naturally during storms. How it plays out depends on the land available beside the creek.

Deployable strategy for the San Antonio West Side: five zones from active and open to exploratory and intimate (community edge, informative threshold, socio-ecological link, habitat immersion and creek edge), read across social program, vegetation from upland to aquatic, and flood conditions from dry to creek — Deployable strategy for the West Side Creeks

07 Project site

The strategy, on Zarzamora Creek

The strategy was then deployed on the chosen site, where conditions were harsh: damaged sports fields, concrete channels, little vegetation and frequent floods.

Existing conditions and the proposition compared layer by layer: program, ecology, topography and the 100-year flood, with the creek widened in the proposal — FIG. 12The project site: existing and proposed conditions

The proposal adds public access through a trail system, community spaces, playgrounds and parks, and richer vegetation, so the community can walk into the creek’s ecology. Widening the creek onto vacant land lets the site hold more water in heavy rain, protecting the neighborhoods beside it and relieving the creek downstream.

Illustrative plan of the San Antoni[ooz] park on Zarzamora Creek, keyed 1 to 16: a recreational and educational facility, Arroyo Bend park and sports complex, a public pool, Los Jardines, six habitat immersions, neighborhood parks, Loma Vista Nook and parking, with the 100-year flood condition inset — The park on Zarzamora Creek, with the 100-year flood condition inset

08 Site design

Four places, at bankfull and in a flood

Once the design was refined, I illustrated four portions of the park: each one’s existing condition, and how it works in a normal state and during a storm.