↑ Located along Buffalo Bayou in Houston, the Arboretum lies within the Gulf Coastal Plains ecoregion, supporting vast flat prairies that abut wooded ravines associated with bayous and depressions.
沿着休斯顿水牛河的植物园位于墨西哥湾沿海平原生态区范围内，支持着抵靠着峡谷的广袤平坦的大草原，峡谷里树木繁茂并且充满了沼泽和洼地。
Photo Credit: Design Workshop, Inc.
↑ Impacted by the natural disaster of Hurricane Ike and a recent historical drought, the Arboretum represents a landscape in crisis. The proposed design is a more ecologically diverse and resilient landscape, designed to better handle future disturbance.
受自然灾害飓风Ike和近期的历史性干旱影响，植物园代表了这场危机中的一道风景。所提出的设计是一个更具生态多样性和复原性的景观，旨在更好地应对未来的灾害影响。
Photo Credit: 214-02 Art Work of Houston, Texas: Published in Twelve Parts: 03-Page3.1904
↑ Forensic analysis of the site explained significant canopy loss. Poorly drained areas with silty clay loam soils – conditions more representative of prairie environments – were widespread on the site.
对现场的取样分析解释了显著的树冠损失的原因。排水不良地区的粉质粘土壤土和具有代表性的草原环境条件都在现场广为散播。
Photo Credit: Design Workshop, Inc.
↑ Using baseline inventory data, ecological suitability was determined for each potential landscape type. The result is a diverse and resilient mosaic that is an authentic representation of the Arboretum’s regional ecological context.
采用基准库存数据和生态适应性确定了每个潜在的景观类型。其结果是一个植物园区域生态肌理的多元化的和弹性的马赛克式的真实展现。
Photo Credit: Design Workshop, Inc.
↑ The new plan sets forth an evolutionary implementation strategy, recycling nutrients and employing volunteers in order to restore the site and educate the community on long-term management of native landscapes.
新设计提出了一个改革性的实施策略通过循环利用营养物和采用志愿者来重建场地和教育市民对乡土景观的长期管理。
Photo Credit: Design Workshop, Inc.
↑ Restoration of the Arboretum will be a process that begins with selective clearing of the disturbed landscape. Over the next 40 years, the landscape will be regenerated to become a more sustainable ecosystem.
植物园的恢复将是一个长期的并以选择性的清理被破坏的景观。在接下去的40年中，景观将会被重新塑造成一个更可持续性的生态系统。
Photo Credit: Design Workshop, Inc.
↑ Enhanced woodland habitat and restored native ecologies, such as prairie and savannah, create a series of landscape character zones that educate users and enrich visitor experience.
强化的林地栖息地和重建的本土生态例如草原和热带草原创造出一系列的景观特色区域教育参与者和丰富游客体验。
Photo Credit: Design Workshop, Inc.
↑ 1. Establish Plantings based upon specifics of micro—topography, hydrology & soil requirements.
基于微地形，水文和土壤要求的具体要求上播种
2. Increase wildlife habitat through a diversity of flora.
通过增加植物的多样性来增加野生动物栖息地
3. Manage invasive species at ecotone edges.
在生态交错带边缘管理外来物种入侵。
Photo Credit: Design Workshop, Inc.
↑ 1. Protect sensitive habitats and drainage patterns with elevated boardwalks.
2. 保护敏感的栖息地并用架高木栈道的方式排水。
3. Retain snag trees and promote plantings for wildlife habitat.
保留枯树并为野生动物栖息地加强种植。
4. Develop vegetative layers of woodland understory.
发展下层林地植被的层次。
Photo Credit: Design Workshop, Inc.
↑ 1. Restore and stabilize riparian corridors. 恢复和稳定河岸走廊。
2.Provide moments of intensified native plantings for distinctive and memorable experiences.
为独特而难忘的经历提供了强化的本土种植空间。
3.Improve water quality flowing to Buffalo Bayou.
沿着水牛河改善了水质。
Photo Credit: Design Workshop, Inc.
↑ The expanded trail network gives visitors multiple options to explore and learn about the ecologies of the Arboretum. A short educational loop allows even the youngest learners to engage in all the ecologies on-site.
展开的步行网络让游客有多种探索和了解植物园生态的选择。一个距离不长的教育性环形路让即使最小的学生都能参与到所有现场的生态环境中来。
Photo Credit: Design Workshop, Inc.
↑ The character of each trail typology responds to the habitat it traverses while displaying representative native plantings endemic of each ecology.
每条步行小径类型特点都反映着其穿越的栖息地，同时表现出该地段生态所特有的本地植物。
Photo Credit: Design Workshop, Inc.
↑ The trail experience crescendos with an elevated boardwalk giving visitors a look out over one of Houston’s most cherished assets - the historic Buffalo Bayou.
步行小径的感受随着架高的木栈道逐渐增强，让参观者能够俯瞰休斯顿最宝贵的风景之一——历史悠久的水牛河。
Photo Credit: Design Workshop, Inc.
The Challenge
Located along Buffalo Bayou, the Houston Arboretum & Nature Center is a 155-acre regional resource that serves as a critical refuge for native plants and animals and a hub for environmental education in the city. The Arboretum is a discrete part of the 1,500-acre Memorial Park designed in 1925 by the landscape architecture and planning firm of Hare & Hare. Developed in the 1950s, the site had evolved to present plants and systems related to more idealize ecological habitats. However, recent hurricanes and drought have taken their toll on its landscape as evidenced by 48-percent tree canopy mortality and the significant presence of invasive species. The primary challenge of the Master Plan is to integrate the site’s ecological and cultural history with modern demands into a responsive, flexible plan of renewal.
Active Listening
Key to crafting a Master Plan that is specific and relevant is starting with an understanding of values and vision. The stakeholder engagement process was extensive, utilizing multiple meetings with a diverse range of public and private sector groups and individuals including teachers, users, Arboretum staff and board members, City of Houston staff, Memorial Park Conservancy board members, donors and others. The process successfully provided an interactive forum for dialogue amongst stakeholders and valuable learning experiences for all participants. At the workshops, stakeholders identified two primary goals – achieving landscape diversity and balancing programmed and “wild” spaces. With a populace so deeply affected by the canopy loss, the landscape architects had to carefully navigate between a desire to restore the previous character of the place and a results-oriented plan founded on the reality of ecological systems in flux. The design team rallied the community around a new trajectory for this landscape—one of a resilient system of varied ecologies changing over time.
Ecological Forensics
Using a forensic approach, the team of landscape architects analyzed the specific site conditions that led to drastic, but not total, canopy mortality. Extensive site analyses of soil-types, drainage patterns, tree canopy, plant diversity and other factors were conducted to understand baseline conditions. The interdisciplinary team of scientific experts and designers conducted research using GIS and field analysis. This analysis revealed that the areas with highest tree mortality rates (those with 70 percent tree mortality or greater) occurred in areas more characteristic of prairie landscapes such as silty clay loam soils and “pimple-dimple” geologic formations where micro-ecologies exist. Canopy trees growing in the “dimple” areas, where water collects, developed shallow andless extensive root systems and experienced the greatest canopy loss during the drought. Paradoxically, canopy trees growing on the raised “pimples” developed deeper and more extensive root systems and survived the drought.
This ecological pattern—revealed only by the recent change in climate—suggested a new landscape mosaic of more varied ecologies. A process of environmental overlays helped determine where optimum conditions existed on-site for varied landscape typologies.
Programmatic Balance
The Master Plan improves the infrastructure related to how people use the site in order to diversify their experience, leading to better enjoyment and understanding of the site’s ecology. The Arboretum currently hosts 180,000 visitors a year and is a valued educational and open space asset for the Houston region. School groups visit the site regularly for nature-based education, and there are frequent on-site adult classes. The Master Plan explored expanding the program services offered on-site, but was also very conscious of its carrying capacity to achieve a balance of unprescribed natural areas and programmed areas. Benchmarks with metrics of nature versus programmed space were drawn from relevant botanical gardens and arboreta. Decision makers endorsed the Master Plan’s recommendations that result in similar characteristics as these precedents.
Progressive Resilience
As a response to ecological crisis, the Master Plan focuses on developing ecosystem resilience and holds the potential to be a model for southeast Texas and other areas undergoing prolonged drought. As important as the original design of these systems is, the management regime planned to regularly assess ecological performance and brace for potential uncertainty. Utilizing a complex management matrix and an dedicated group of volunteers, the Master Plan defines strategic interventions to initiate new dynamic ecologies. The detritus of tree loss will be chipped and repurposed to help liner stock plantings retain moisture and provide vital organic matter back to a soil degraded by drought. Thickets of invasive species will be removed, fortifying canopy strongholds and other natives. Volunteers will plant drifts of liner stock in waves. Swaths of prairie and savannah will be seeded and regenerated by annual mowing or controlled burnings. The strategy manages toward a resilient set of dynamic and evolving systems, fulfilling the Arboretum’s mission to interpret the land as a collection of natural habitats and interrelated systems rather than as a collection of trees.
