+ BROWNIE NEIGHBORHOOD PARK [Winner, 2020 Texas Society of Architects Studio Prize]

AUSTIN, TEXAS / 2017 - 2019

Brownie Neighborhood Park

Collaboration
Jason Sowell

National Award
Texas Society of Architects Studio Prize, 2020.

Client
Austin Parks and Recreation Department
Read the report

URBAN INFRASTRUCTURE | ENGAGED DESIGN PROCESS | PLAY | PLAZA | LEARNING GARDENS

Designing ecological and social infrastructure within a legacy housing system
Brownie Neighborhood Park is a built intervention in a legacy housing community in East Austin, designed to reframe a neglected drainage corridor as a resilient, shared commons. Rooted in both historical research and community engagement, the project connects ecological function to social repair—repositioning a fragment of urban green space as an infrastructural seam that binds together memory, mobility, and dwelling.

What began as an overlooked void—wedged between public housing and private subdivisions—becomes a multi-functional landscape that manages stormwater, enhances walkability, and provides a much-needed space for gathering in a historically underserved neighborhood. Pathways align with pedestrian desire lines. Planting zones respond to drainage patterns. Seating and shade create dignified pauses along daily routes.

Design workshop at the Brownie Neighborhood Park

Design Workshop at the Gus Garcia YMCA

Drawing on a two-year collaboration with residents, Austin’s Parks and Recreation Department, and a local community association, the Brownie Neighborhood Park is organized around a recreational loop of concentric slow and fast activity paths and a strip of diverse game courts, that together enclose a landscape of children’s play fields, including outdoor learning labs and gardens to support the school at the site’s southern edge. The phased implementation of these elements, ongoing community involvement, and ecological management directly explore how architecture for urban justice is constructed with communities in practice.