Houston’s Alief Neighborhood Center and Park is the result of the city’s Resilience Hub Plan, launched after Hurricane Harvey in 2017.
Photographer: Bill Tatham/Sarah Schumacher for BloombergHouston’s Alief Neighborhood Center Is a Resilience Hub for a Working-Class Melting Pot
A community center designed by SWA and Page aims to serve as a central space for a community that spans race, class and urban lines.
Hurricane Beryl hit the Houston area last July, causing dozens of deaths and leaving millions without power. The Sunday after the storm passed, Natalia Beard, principal at landscape architecture firm SWA, surveyed the damage at the Alief Neighborhood Center and Park. The new amenity was spared, fortunately, and even provided shelter for affected residents in southwest Houston.
“Typically it’s not open on Sundays, but it was opened as a cooling center, and there were families inside enjoying the air conditioning,” she recalls.