Open space planning for Travis Country, Austin, Texas: a collaborative design

Travis Country is a 700 acre rapidly growing suburban community located in southwest Austin, Texas. It is situated in the Barton Creek Watershed and t he Edward Aquifer Recharge Zone. Travis Country has 200 acres of protected open space land located in the middle of this development. The Travis Count ry Homeowners Association requested the assistance of a collaborative desig n studio class consisting of 16 graduate and undergraduate landscape archit ecture students at Texas A&M University. The class was asked to develop a c omprehensive open space and greenways master plan for Travis Country with a focus on its protected open space land. Later the project was taken over a nd completed by two third-year MLA students as their final project. In the summer of 1996, the proposed master plan was formally approved and adopted by the Travis Country Homeowners Association. Some of the plan recommendati ons have already been implemented. This paper addresses issues related to s tudents involvement with a real-world project in a design studio setting an d to graduate education in landscape architecture. Our discussion will focu s on how to conduct a community outreach project in a collaborative design studio. First, we describe the planning process and methods used for this p roject. Then, we summarize the major results of the master plan. Finally, w e discuss some teaching strategies used in conducting this collaborative de sign studio and the community outreach project. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B .V. All rights reserved.