"Houston’s Midtown district once suffered with an inhospitable urban environment and a lack of amenities beyond bars and large apartment buildings. As part of a larger renaissance in the City of Houston to reclaim and enliven vacant and public spaces to improve the quality of life for all its residents and businesses, a public-private partnership was formed to revitalize a 6-acre "superblock" in the Midtown district. Today Midtown is more walkable, sustainable and connected. With the recent completion of Midtown Park, the once under-used lawn is now the three-acre centerpiece of the larger park system, activated with a performance pavilion, trails, marketplace, two restaurants, an arts garden, dog park and social game courts. Bayou-inspired water features bring nature to the city to provide respite and sustainable water management – all built on top of a public underground parking garage. Midtown Park is an early demonstration project for the ongoing development of a greener, more walkable Houston that proves that high-quality public spaces are a crucial ingredient for successful, livable cities.

The wall in Midtown Park was particularly challenging because it doesn’t have a lot of right angles in it, Friend Gay said, so to get accurate measurements, she and her team had to take laser measurements. In designing the mural to fit the 12-foot by 63-foot wall supporting a berm, she also had to take multiple expansion joints into account. The project demanded careful planning and calculating. “It has to look like the image flows beyond that gap,” she said. “I designed it so that each panel between expansion joints would be a whole narrative that would read as a single image by itself.” The artwork continues to be cared for and enhanced to ensure the best viewing experience for visitors to Midtown Park with the installation of JEDI RECESSED lighting by Targetti and stone trim surrounding the mosaic.Source: MidtownHouston.com Photo Credit: Hall Puckett Photography