San Antonio, Texas, USA
Weddle Gilmore Architects and Ten Eyck Landscape Architects have joined forces to expand the San Antonio Botanical Garden, creating a vital link between the downtown core and the city’s cultural and recreational attractions.
This perfectly positions the Garden to serve full-time residents and travelers exploring this growing, diverse, culturally rich city.
The San Antonio Botanical Garden expansion project has been awarded a 2023 American Architecture Award from The Chicago Athenaeum and The European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies.
Over the past decade, the city of San Antonio has experienced one of the greatest growth rates nationwide.
To keep pace with the city’s dramatic growth, the Garden realized that they must adapt if they were to stay true to their mission and vision.
They needed to expand their programming potential. This meant reimagining existing resources and adding new ones.
To adequately accommodate a long-term vision, the Garden acquired an 8-acre parcel along its southern boundary, adding to its existing 30-acre site.
This provided the land necessary for growth.
What followed was a 2-phase endeavor that included the relocation and rethinking of the visitor entry experience and saw the addition of a new welcome center, event center, event lawn, outdoor classroom, culinary garden, Family Adventure Garden, and covered pavilion.
Architectural forms and materiality draw from both natural and man-made elements. Sweeping concrete walls were inspired by eroded Karst limestone formations found along regional riverbanks.
Curving forms open and frame views while drawing visitors through the site in the same manner that the riverbanks draw people downstream.
The walls are also a historical recall of local quarries. The stratification and terracing of the walls are reminiscent of local excavations.
Expansive wood ceilings in the Event Center and Entry Center are constructed using reclaimed sinker cypress.
The wide canopy of the entry portal and the undulating facets of the event center ceiling mimic the long horizontal reach of native oak canopies.
The use of reclaimed wood is one reflection of the project’s commitment to its environmental values.
The project’s broader approach to sustainability is active and passive. A roof-mounted 30kW photovoltaic array over the Outdoor Teaching Kitchen reduces the power draw from municipal sources.
A water harvesting system redirects stormwater from some rooftops and condensates from HVAC units to a 29,000-gallon underground cistern.
The stored water is used for irrigation of the Culinary Garden. Bioswales slow and filter much of the site’s surface runoff.
Expansive operable window walls provide daylighting and ventilation while connecting interior spaces to nature’s surrounding beauty. Deep overhangs provide shade, imperative during warm months.
These approaches to sustainable design, along with others, have earned the project a LEED Gold Certification for Phase I and LEED Certification for Phase II.
The numerous, adaptable indoor/outdoor spaces have become favored for formal events and casual gatherings by residents, the business community, and arts and education groups.
This completed, multi-phase project has allowed the San Antonio Botanical Garden to continue its vision of being a world-class garden recognized for outstanding horticulture displays, botanical diversity, education, conservation, and experiences that connect people to the natural world while embracing the sense of place that makes San Antonio unique.
Project: San Antonio Botanical Garden
Architects: Weddle Gilmore Architects
Landscape Architects: Ten Eyck Landscape Architects (TELA) Inc.
General Contractor: Kopplow Construction Co., Inc.
Client: San Antonio Botanical Garden
Photographers: Bill Timmerman
