Encounter: Meeting Points Along Buffalo Bayou

Community Engagement, Environmental

A collaborative project to raise awareness for the value of public recreational spaces and invite community engagement. Involved six installations designed to educate the public about Buffalo Bayou’s East sector. Proposals exhibited at Sunset Coffee Building. Event hosted on April 7th of 2018.

Awards
Society for Environmental Graphic Design, 2019

Media coverage by Houstonia Magazine, Houston Public Media, The Cougar, The Houston Chronicle, 365 Things to Do in Houston, Buffalo Bayou Partnership, and the University of Houston Graphic Alumni Partnership.

Process

The main interaction is a magnetic map puzzle of Buffalo Bayou, its boat launches, park areas, and prime destinations. Participants learn about the recreational potential of the bayou by matching informational magnets with their corresponding sites on the map.

Pedestrian and bicycle traffic all stopped at the map, automatically drawn to its size and deliberate design.
From the map, visitors are attracted down to the water by supergraphics that tell a poetic narrative about the Buffalo Bayou Parnership’s plans to develop a communal recreational space to join the two communities currently divided by the bayou.

Process

The development process of the project included a meeting hosted by the Buffalo Bayou Partnership to gather public input on how to make Buffalo Bayou Park more visitor friendly (below). We were both participants and observers. The points discussed at this meeting were used to develop the topics of each ‘Meeting Point’ in Encounter.
We presented our project proposals to Anne Olson, the president of the Buffalo Bayou Partnership (BBP)(images below), then organized an exhibition of our proposals to gather public interest.