The Founders District

Competition Entry for a digital innovation campus in Houston, Texas. The masterplan envisiones a phased growth of an existing technology cluster into an European style dense campus. All of the ingredients of a good campus are incorporated into the design: green and lush, pedestrian-first, sports and activities, low-rise buildings and a focus on a good work-life balance within the campus community.

The Founders District (TFD) has already kickstarted into the future with the recent developments of The Cannon and the Bayou City Fellowship, Spring Branch. The proposal designs the foundation and ambition for a masterplan, with ideas about a global layout, traffic organisation, parking, landscaping, phasing and typologies. The proposal is a first exploration of the opportunities of the site. The location has an exceptional accessibility, in close proximity to a multi-million city that has expressed an interest in supporting the tech industry. Our design proposal is a dense but lush campus, small-scale and full of programmatic and developing flexibility.

The physical layout focused on some very rational planning principles: traffic, routing, parking, development flexibility and phasing. The dimensions of the buildings were based on a grid layout that could either become offices, housing, parking or hotel. The global layout was based on a crossing of two strips: the park en the sports strip. In the center of it all would be The Cannon, the existing and functioning tech hub. Furthermore was there a ring-road planned with service roads crossing the plot, organizing the infrastructural part. Parking was envisioned in phases on the site, and when in the future space becomes scarce several plots could be developed as parking buildings. Phasing was planned from the center outward, with the flexibility of developing multiple blocks at the same time, creating new clusters.