WHAT CAN YOU DO WITH THE CITY?

By Reid Mulligan
Throughout Houston giants fields of space are leftover,
neglected, or paved over inhibiting a potential urbanism.
These spaces are the edges, the edges of freeways,
big-boxes, neighborhoods, campuses, bayous, or urban
places. How can we reconsider these spaces as sites for
architectural intervention – as places to be occupied – as
places that can connect adjacent, but disconnected
programs and people? How can we take a ubiquitous
condition and work to make it specific?
THE UNDERPASS

The highway underpass is certainly a ubiquitous condition

throughout Houston. As freeways cut through the city grid
and urban fabric, the concrete structures rise, delaminating
themselves from the land creating grand dark places below.
Buffalo Bayou Park follows the bayou west of downtown,
cutting a path through the city only floods and waters can
bridge. The park is shaped by the roads surrounding it rather
than the nature contained within it. In the same spirit, this
project aims to energize and transform these dead urban
spaces.
SITE

At the intersection of San Jacinto & Wheeler, Highway 59

slashes through the urban grid and spans an enormous
space. In response to the programs adjacent to the site (the
Consulate of Mexico, Fiesta Grocery Store, Mexican
Institute, Sears, and Wheeler Metro Station), pedestrians
inevitably pass through and utilize the existing underpass for
shelter and shade. Even with unfavorable conditions, the
underpass is populated with pedestrians seeking communal
space. As a result, food wagons and vendors are scattered
throughout the area to feed these people idling between
spaces.
URBAN SWALE

It’s no secret that air surrounding highways is filled with

harmful pollutants that stings our eyes and chokes our
lungs, as well as damaging plants and trees. These sort of
conditions are unpleasant and unsafe for communities
surrounding highways. As an alternative to these unhealthy
and undefined spaces I’m proposing an urban swale to not
only offset these conditions, but enhance them. Vegetation
in swales allows for filtering of pollutants, and infiltration of
runoff into groundwater. Swales can be constructed with
low costs, material use, and maintenance; swales maintain
themselves through natural processes.
 WHEELER

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+25 FT

THE MARKET

At the intersection of these various programs creating the

SHELTER & PERMEABILITY
pedestrian environment and the need for space where the
community can gather, socialize, and eat comes the idea for
the Freeway Market. Essentially, the Freeway Market is a
centralized space where public vendors and the community
can meet to fulfill these needs. The market is an extension of
the swale, where people can pass through and enjoy the
surrounding vegetation as it filters the surrounding harmful
pollutants. The form of the market grows out of the swale
and raises up for permeability along the adjacent streets
creating a roof landscape where plants can grow and
people can congregate.

CONNECTION
 BILLBOARDS DOMINATE VIEW

POOR VISUAL RELATIONSHIP

WITH CONTEXT

DARK/UNDEFINED SPACE

STORMWATER RUNOFF

EXISTING CONDITIONS
 SOLAR ARRAY

MARKETPLACE

LIGHTING URBAN SWALE

CONSULATE
CONSULAT

GENERATOR

REDEFINED CONDITIONS