The Time My Neighbors Accused Me of Stealing Their Park
15 years ago, when I began to build my house on a stunning piece of property by White Rock Lake in the luscious North East side of Dallas, I was accused of illegally building on a park. A place where the neighborhood had spent years enjoying hide-and-go-seek and hours talking, surrounded by groves of trees and ample room to roam; the White Rock Lake residents were horrified when they first found construction materials littering the meticulously mowed grass. Everyone was surprised: I was surprised that so many people had fallen in love with the land, and the neighborhood was surprised when they found out they had illegally been trespassing on a space they had come to see as partially their own for almost a decade.
The land started as a forest: 20 - foot tall poison ivy trees, vines choking stalks that turned harmless native plants into a dangerous landscape; Hackberries and Bodarks choked every inch with their roots; ten years of not being touched by human hands or chemicals can let ground grow wild.
When I began to mow, slowly tear down evasive species, and create space for native plants to thrive naturally, the forest turned into a park: patches of space free from tangled leaves left room for places to play. The neighborhood began to notice, then they began to walk by more often, then it became a well-known place for tag, hide-and-go-seek, and family picnics.
After accusations of illegal building and theft turned into a shocking and hilarious realization of reality, I continued to preserve the property to be as close to its truest origins as possible. For over a decade now, I have not only lived in a LEED designed house, but has fostered a lifestyle through the property and his passions, further supporting the environment with passive energy design, supporting native plant growth, sharing the importance of biophilia by planting dozens of trees across the neighborhood, and enjoyed raising a variety of urban farm creatures. I realized that the heart behind building green, is living green.
“Living it helps me test out the practicality of our designs,” the project boasts a frame that flows with the topography and defined window placement that engages passive energy with the shape of the sun’s rotations throughout the year. And this intention extends throughout the entire brand and staff, with my current project intern also raising urban chickens, practicing water conservation with native-plant landscaping, and meticulously tracking consumption to ensure a decrease in waste.
“Our designs are green not because they are environmentally friendly, but because we place the landscape at the center of our design,” says Project Intern Michael Rosson. Our work aims to immerse you in the value that drives our design; so much so that sometimes, that it’s hard to believe.
