The Gardens at Texas A&M University


Rice Natural Area


South Parking Place


South Parking Place was conceived as an urban destination within downtown Lake Jackson. The under-utilized existing parking lot fronts a major city thoroughfare and lies adjacent to the historic architecture office/museum of Alden Dow, the celebrated designer of Lake Jackson. White Oak Studio imagined reinvention of the space to create a unique event plaza that includes a children’s play space, community pavilion, event lawn, extensive plantings, and areas for future commercial development. Construction is planned for 2012.


Texas Children’s Hospital


Located in Houston’s Texas Medical Center, this leading medical facility entails a campus of three large buildings separated by public streets. Basement parking areas and research facilities extend underground beyond the buildings, resulting in a landscape that is substantially a roof garden at street level. White Oak Studio landscape architects have completed all of the landscape development of three major projects in 1990, 2002 and 2007-9, using native trees, azaleas, ornamental grasses, earth forms and landscape lighting to unify the separate sites into a coherent identifiable campus. Two major pieces of public art were integrated into the landscape, ‘Sail Park’ in collaboration with architect Charles Tapley, and a giant mosaic lizard by Fletcher Mackay. A wonderful playground and rooftop courtyards and landscaped balconies are used to bring natural elements further into the experience of hospital patients.


Pine Presbyterian Church


This enclosed garden was created as a sacred space outside the sanctuary at Pines Presbyterian Church – a space for prayer and for honoring loved ones. Niches for inurnment are incorporated into four wall panels and low granite curbs. A brick and ornamental iron fence enclose the space while plantings of small flowering trees and native shrubs integrate with existing mature trees. A calming gurgle of water wells up from the hand-carved granite fountain onto native cobblestones.


Memorial Oaks Cemetery


The capacity of a garden for nurturing the human spirit has been recognized for centuries. The commission to design a cemetery garden requires the understanding that the ultimate client is unknown to the designer – family and friends of the person being honored. WOS created a garden with perimeter walls and planting that offer enclosure and privacy; a traditional configuration using familiar materials that instill a sense of comfort, and a central fountain covered by an arching rose arbor.


Kinkaid School


The Kinkaid School is a private K-12 institution in the Memorial area of Houston. White Oak Studio completed major outdoor gathering spaces including the North Courtyard, the Lower School Playground, and The Quadrangle. As the primary outdoor plaza on campus, the Quadrangle offers a variety of spaces from shady private seating to open public performance space and includes a water feature crafted from Texas limestone as the focal point.


Women’s Home


Jane Cizik Garden Place is an apartment community operated by The Women’s Home, serving women who live alone on a modest income. White Oak Studio designed the courtyard which the buildings surround. In collaboration with two garden donors, White Oak Studio designed a flagstone and beach-pebble labyrinth, gazebo, fountain, rose arbor, thematic gardens, and seating areas.


Willow Meadows Residence


The family landscape integrates two adjacent houses into a compound including a lap pool, family pool, tennis court, cabana, and sukkah arbor. The floodplain site required the house be raised almost five feet above grade, making for challenging indoor/outdoor relationships. The landscape is a combination of native plantings adaptable to weather extremes that compliment the Spanish influence of the architecture. White Oak Studio worked closely with architects Marks & Salley on the project.


Wiess Master’s House


White Oak Studio worked with architects Stern and Bucek on the landscape design for the Wiess Masters House on the campus of Rice University. Built within the confines of a tight budget and limited time frame, the resulting project addresses the competing public and private needs of a residence in the middle of a college campus. The public spaces respond to the adjacent campus landscape while interior courtyards accommodate both large groups and intimate gatherings. Garden style, materials, and plant selection were influenced by the clean, modern lines of the house. The project is LEED certified.