WEST 8 Review

 WEST 8: Houston Botanic Garden, Texas.

West 8, the USA-based design practice, created the vision for the the city's first botanic garden. The site, which was a former golf-course, now hosts an expansive botanic garden, zoned into different gardens,  and facilities. 

The zoning of the site has been done thoughtfully, with a gradual narrative-shift from replicated natural landscapes to formal, designed landscapes and productive growing space. The human-centered design, running through the design provides easy, accommodating access to all areas of the site. I feel that this project successfully avoids the tendency to create neglected, less accessible 'wilder' areas, as a short cut and instead, maintains a balanced hierarchy between all of the spaces equally. 

This rhetoric is echoed in their concept of a "living museum", whereby all of the plants within the site are viewed as 'artefacts' of high value and importance. It uses the wilder areas of the park to place plants within a more naturalistic setting, providing education to visitors, as well as in more cultivated environments to spark inspiration. Education facilities are included within the design and demonstrate the projects commitment to social and environmental sustainability and the future preservation of these species, not solely aesthetics. 

That being said, there has been no short-cut on aesthetics. The specificities of form and colour have been thought about within several aspects of the design: there are bespoke features, throughout the site, that exemplify the West 8's design flare, such as the biophillic water wall and shaded education room (shown below).

Project found at: https://www.west8.com/projects/houston-botanic-gardens/#Canvas-for-the-Community