Kevin Sloan To Be Honored With Park Naming
Kevin Sloan is a landscape architect and a mischievous guy with big ideas. In a handful of meetings I had with him – when he explained how the city is screwing up, how we should rethink our green space plans – he felt like a guy who has traveled into the future and learned some in-depth concepts there, happily amused by our struggle to understand what he shared with us. I’ll do my best to summarize what I think he meant to say. It goes like this: Leave the shit alone!
All these big plans for the Trinity River? Why not just let the flood path do what the flood path naturally wants? Let it run wild again! Bring back native grasses! Give all these migratory birds a place to stay and rest! In March 2017, we devoted most of an issue of D Magazine to the idea of rewilding Dallas. Kevin was our inspiration. He contributed to the package of stories about the system of waterways we paved for decades and how we might reconsider our relationship with them.
Kevin has glioblastoma, a real brain tumor. He had to have surgery to remove it, but his wife and business partner Diane says the tumor spreads like a spider web through brain tissue. Kevin continues his fight, but he’s in the hospice. “He’s a warrior,” says Diane. “He’s my hero.”
And he’ll be watching online tomorrow as the Dallas City Council begins its briefing with a special tribute to Kevin’s work. Then, on Thursday, the Park Board will give 12th Street Connector Park a new name: Kevin W. Sloan Park. Both honors are highly deserved. I will picture Kevin at home with an open laptop while he watches the mayor’s pro temp reading the following text, while Kevin grins gratefully and thinks, “Yes, yes. That is what I said. You are beginning to understand it. “
Special appreciation text:
Whereas the City of Dallas recognizes the importance of maintaining and promoting public parks, green spaces and the natural environment to the health and wellbeing of our city; and
Whereas Kevin W. Sloan, ASLA, M.Arch, Honorary AIA Dallas, landscape architect, college professor, and longtime Oak Cliff resident, is a leader in urban park creation and natural space reclamation; and
Whereas Mr Sloan has been vocal in advocating the revitalization, recognition and protection of the Blackland Prairie habitat in Dallas, an indigenous and fragile ecosystem; and
Whereas Mr. Sloan conceived and popularized the idea of ”rewilding” the Trinity River Corridor by promoting the restoration of its original flora and fauna; and
Whereas Mr Sloan designed and discussed the Dallas-Fort Worth Branch Waters Network nationally and internationally, a bold plan to illuminate the sprawling DFW watershed and fundamentally transform the urban environment;
Whereas Mr. Sloan has developed master plans and designs for parks and walking trails across the city of Dallas that celebrate and promote human engagement with nature;
Whereas Mr. Sloan has been Professor of Architecture at the University of Texas at Arlington for more than a decade, inspiring generations of North Texas students; and
Whereas Mr. Sloan has served the citizens of the city of Dallas by serving as a member and chairman of the city’s urban design peer review committee;
THEREFORE, I, CHAD WEST, Mayor Pro Tem District 1, and on behalf of the Dallas City Council, KEVIN W. SLOAN, hereby express my special appreciation for his exceptional community work in the city of Dallas.
Former councilor Angela Hunt worked with Kevin and Diane. Hunt has compiled a list of projects Kevin has worked on. If you want to feel lazy, check out the following:
KEVIN W. SLOAN’S CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE CITY OF DALLAS AND NORTH TEXAS
Listed below are the highlights of contributions from Kevin W. Sloan, ASLA, M.Arch, Honorary AIA Dallas, landscape architect, college professor, and longtime resident of Oak Cliff, for the city of Dallas and North Texas
• Was a member of the Urban Design Peer Review Board for several years and performed the duties of committee chairman and vice chairman (2013 to 2020).
• While working for HOK in the 1990s, he conducted a planning study to investigate a park in Woodall Rodgers that would connect downtown Dallas with downtown. (A deck park was part of that park, but Kevin’s concept was bigger.)
• When Klyde Warren Park was first conceived and fundraising campaigns began, park founder Shelia Grant reached out to Kevin to create graphics to help donors see the vision of the park. Kevin contacted the renowned illustrator Michael McCann to create a series of hand-drawn watercolor renderings for this purpose and assisted him in creating these drawings. Ms. Grant has commended Kevin for his dedication and help in reaching the fundraising goals and building the nationally renowned park. Kevin recently assisted McCann again when he created further illustrations for the planned expansion of the park.
• Kevin was part of the SMU planning team that created the proposal for the George W. Bush Presidential Library. Kevin worked with Michael McCann again to do renders for the proposal. The efforts were obviously successful, and the library had its own design team, which he was not a part of. As a thank you to Kevin for his work, the university awarded him the design of the Centennial Plaza on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the SMU in 2011. The square has become one of the most popular places on campus and has been the location of at least one marriage proposal.
• Kevin has written numerous pro bono articles and essays for Dallas-based publications to promote various Dallas design ideas. This includes the “DFW Branch Waters Network” for Columns magazine, a publication by the Dallas Chapter of the American Institute of Architects. (This article eventually led to the idea of rewilding the Trinity River floodway.) Kevin emphasized his concept of rewilding in an article featured in the March 2017 issue of D Magazine “Wild Dallas”. He was also a columnist for the Dallas Morning News, writing on a variety of subjects.
• Was part of the design team for the Winspear Opera House / AT&T Performing Arts Center and was involved in the early stages of planning and development. An important contribution from Kevin was the microclimate research he carried out for the area, which proved that there was a surface temperature difference of almost 40 ° between shaded landscape areas and unshaded paved areas in summer. This research inspired the architects to add the shade canopy to the building, which makes the area a much more pleasant place to be during our hottest months.
• Was landscape architect and planner for the award-winning Urban Reserve project in Dallas, a nationally known modern housing development with one of the first bio-filter roads in Dallas. Vanguard Way is a road designed in sections with a dry and a wet side. The dry side falls to the wet side where the runoff is collected, then passes through a biofilter medium where the water is then collected in a pond and reused for irrigation of the development.
• Served as landscape architect for the Dallas Urban Commons project, which is the same developer as Urban Reserve. However, this project will include smaller, lower-cost apartments that revolve around the countryside and a stream that runs through the property. The project is currently under construction.
• Since 2005, Kevin has contributed to the education of numerous North Texas architects and landscape architects as a professor of practice at the University of Texas’ Arlington College of Architecture, Planning and Public Affairs. Inspires numerous designers to develop careers that have had a dramatic impact on the fabric of Dallas and the surrounding area.
• Provided pro bono design work for the Jefferson / 12th Connector project in Oak Cliff prior to being hired as landscape architect for the project. A dangerous road will be removed and replaced with public open space. Kevin and his wife Diane live on North Clinton Avenue, just two blocks from the project. (It should be noted that while Kevin was technically paid some design work, it was only a fraction of the fee the company would get for a project this size, so it was in no way a money maker for the company.)
• Was landscape architect for Singing Hills Recreation Center, the only recreation center in the city of Dallas that is directly connected to a DART light rail station. The project includes the indigenous landscape of the Blackland Prairie and an amphitheater / square connected to the DART station.
• Served as landscape architect for Casa Linda Playground, which is part of Casa Linda Park. It is one of the few playgrounds in this area.
• Participated in numerous pro bono references for various institutions across North Texas to nurture and train different groups. These include the Dallas AIA Chapter, the Greater Dallas Planning Council, the DFW section of the Texas American Society Landscape Architects, and the Texas Native Plants Society.
• Honorary Fellow of the American Institute of Architects, Dallas Chapter for service to the local chapter.
• A landscaping master plan for the Friends of the Northaven Trail was recently finalized that will help the Friends group focus their fundraising on specific areas of the trail. It should be noted that the master plan contains a re-wilding component.
• Designed the streetscapes and courtyards for numerous apartment buildings across the DFW area, including Novell Bishop Arts and some Gables properties in Uptown.
• Played a significant role as a team member in the recent update of the Fair Park Master Plan.
• Major projects Kevin was involved in but not in the city of Dallas are Vitruvian Park in Addison, Airfield Falls Conservation Park in Fort Worth, the redevelopment of downtown Richardson, the development of the Lakeside Village in Flower Mound , the library for the Collin College-Frisco campus (designed the architecture), the Fort Worth Gateway Project (soon to be groundbreaking), the Tilley Bridge West Bank revitalization (soon to start construction), as well as many others.
• Nationally known projects in Kevin’s career are the Alamo Transit Mall (street landscape in front of the Alamo) and the former Sprint World headquarters in Overland Park, Kansas.
• Committed to the resurrection, recognition and protection of the Blackland Prairie habitat in North Texas, a native and fragile ecosystem.
• The Dallas-Fort Worth Branch Waters Network conceived and spoke nationally and internationally about the idea of Watershed Urbanism, a bold plan to illuminate the sprawling DFW watershed and fundamentally transform the urban environment. This work was recently exhibited at the Venice Biennale in Italy.
• In an academic context, Kevin’s unique cross-fertilization of landscape and architecture inspired ideas of built landscapes in the built environment. He has been one of the most influential faculty at the Arlington School of Architecture at the University of Texas for more than a decade.
• Member of numerous boards including: Advisory Board, Fay Jones School of Architecture, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, AK; AIA Columns Editorial Advisory Board, Dallas Center for Architecture, Dallas, TX.
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