For Southwest Houston Redevelopment Authority / TIRZ 20 in partnership with Connect Community, Non-Profit

Southwest Urban Garage

What if the architectural conventions of a parking garage were deliberately used to produce a range of civic responses?

This urban garage addresses the expressed needs of a community, with the car as a possible user, rather than its sole occupant. The structuring of vehicle storage creates opportune conditions like large spans and sectional volumes. When material mass is pigmented green, the spatial continuum is recontextualized, becoming more open to appropriation and enabling imagined uses. Vehicular bypass routes create a temporary car-free double-height urban room that connects to park events, health department educational services, and transforms into an interiorized community recovery space for post-disaster food distribution and cooling. These paths make the top floor flexible for movie nights or athletics with integrated lighting and soccer goals.

The garage becomes a functional urban trellis that is accessible, practical, and operationally civic to meet the needs of a resilient community.