Promenade / Houston 
Retail Center
2020 (anticipated) / 15,000 sq. ft.

Promenade is a retail center designed to be less car-centric and focused on human experience. Atypical of Houston’s retail centers, the site is oriented not along the street but perpendicular to it. As a result, recessed areas of the building are set at an angle to the street to increase visibility toward the center. These areas are also designed to promote connections to nature in retail and workplace environments. The recesses shelter mini-gardens, each one designed as a unique micro-climate, inviting visitors to pause momentarily before entering the stores and offices.

 

The architectural elements of Promenade-- shading canopies, outdoor trellises, and vertical fins are designed to extend the borders between indoor and outdoor spaces. Rising from the mini-gardens are tall, white fins that provide shade and appear as part of both the built and natural environments. They evoke the site’s tall trees and bamboo groves while also being integral to the center’s architectural identity.

Visitors stroll along a “green threshold” designed for human well-being, with plantings from different local environments: a rock garden, a tall grasses garden, a garden for pollinators, and a desert garden. Promenade connects multi-sensorial environments, like the fragrant scent of jasmine climbers or the cooling shade from bamboo groves, to shopping and work experiences . This “green threshold”—part architecture, part environment—economically uses just 2% of the site area to improve visitors’ well-being.


Project Team: Phu Hoang, Rachely Rotem, Tom Sterling, Brenda Lim

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Credits: Identity Architects (Local Architect), CJG Engineers (Structural) , ASEI Engineering (MEP), ALJ Lindsey (Civil)