Skylawn at POST Houston wins Jeffrey L. Bruce Award of Excellence during Cities Alive Conference

November 18, 2024 - Our rooftop project, Skylawn at POST Houston, was recently recognized by Green Roofs for Healthy Cities with a Jeffrey L. Bruce Award of Excellence Special Recognition Award during the Cities Alive conference in Toronto, Ontario.

Associate principal and construction administration lead on the project, Brian Davis, accepted the award on Hoerr Schaudt's behalf. During the ceremony, he said a few words about the importance of receiving this recognition. "This was a very challenging 5-acre adaptive reuse project that was the largest rooftop park and organic farm in Texas," Brian said. "Beyond the range of plant typologies and the organic farm, the publicly accessible rooftop serves as an entertainment and leisure hub in the urban core that also contributes to combatting flooding into the neighboring Buffalo Bayou. And the views to downtown Houston are fantastic!"

Brian is especially honored to have accepted an award whose namesake was that of his mentor, Jeffrey L. Bruce. Jeff was Brian's mentor for over 15 years. "[He] taught me all about green roofs, especially their technical attributes. It means a little more to accept this award on behalf of HS…..but also to honor Jeff."

Situated at the northern edge of downtown Houston, the historic Barbara Jordan Post Office – an iconic modernist industrial facility and the City’s primary postal distribution center – closed in 2015 as part of an effort to modernize the postal delivery process. In 2018, a local developer introduced ambitious plans to reposition the massive facility as POST Houston, a mixed-use development that will honor the building’s history while becoming a multifaceted cultural hub for one of the most diverse cities in the country.

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The landscape architect was engaged to collaborate with the developer and the project’s design architect on the planning and design of the garden roof that serves as the crowning element of the POST project. The building’s green roof, also known as Skylawn, is now one of Houston’s most dynamic and unique outdoor settings. Comprising five acres atop the former post office building, the project is the largest rooftop park and sustainable organic farm in Texas offering unparalleled panoramic views of the city’s iconic skyline. The roofscape plays host to an array of functions including restaurants, event spaces, gardens, and an operating one-acre urban farm.

The Skyfarm at POST Houston is the one-acre food farm within Skylawn operated by Blackwood Educational Land Institute, a nonprofit on a mission to model the indispensable role of regenerative food systems in all our lives. The Skyfarm is a model for the possibilities of rooftop soil growing and urban, community-supported agriculture. The farm was featured on a segment of “Good Morning America!” in May 2022 to highlight the 50 volunteers who helped plant the urban garden. The Outpost, located adjacent to Skyfarm, has become a popular outdoor event space.

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As a nod to the cultural diversity of Houston, Skylawn was conceived as a collection of garden rooms that celebrate the range of landscape typologies and ecologies endemic to the southeast Texas region. Visitors to the space can experience exuberant horticulture manifest in an arid garden, a woodland, and a tropical water garden. Designed to contrast the rigid frame of the modernist building upon which it sits, the artful forms of the rooftop garden frame spaces with sinuous curves and act as a counterpoint to the orthogonal roof and pavilions. Visitors to the rooftop are immersed in an evolving series of landscapes that unfold when moving from room to room.

Beyond serving as a hub for entertainment and leisure, Skylawn at POST Houston is a high-performance, sustainable landscape contributing to the successful repositioning of the facility. By converting much of the hard-surfaced roof into a sponge-like garden, the rooftop combats flooding by reducing stormwater runoff into the neighboring Buffalo Bayou. This greener landscape helps mitigate the urban heat island effect while creating acres of habitat for pollinators and other wildlife.
Creating an exciting destination at the front steps of downtown, Skylawn at POST Houston introduces a new type of experience to the city; a rooftop garden that celebrates the arts, culture, and diversity of this great metropolis.

Congratulations to the full team on this transformative project!

OMA (Lead Architect)

Powers Brown Architecture (Executive Architect)

IMEG Corg (Structural Engineer)

DBR Engineering Consultants (MEP)

Harvey Builders (Contractor)

Ruppert (Landscape Contractor)

DotDash (Lighting)

MacRostie (Historic Advisor)

MTWTF with Formation (Identity and Signage)