2020 Professional Awards
of the Potomac Chapter, ASLA

Fort Worth Arena

Michael Vergason Landscape Architects

Congratulations to Michael Vergason Landscape Architects for their Fort Worth Arena project in Fort Worth, Texas. The jury said that the project “feels well designed and elegantly done, with nice paving and brickwork details, and use of a vernacular that fit the site context. Great photography and graphics.”

Merit Award in Built Design

Home to Fort Worth’s famed Stock Show and Rodeo, the new Fort Worth Arena makes an important  contribution to the rich diversity of the Cultural District of the city. The design manages high volumes of people and animals moving through the site, creating a parklike landscape built over the Arena’s technical and animal support facility, which effectively functions as a 5-acre green roof.



The landscape architect’s rigorous design process generated multiple sketches that detailed the social, parklike potential of the Arena’s landscape. Key to its realization are human-scale details and warm textures that invite users to linger. 



The landscape architect worked with a nursery to select specimens two years prior to installation. Textural vegetation, reminiscent of the region’s Cross Timbers ecotone, creates a layered atmosphere with a view of Fort Worth’s skyline in the distance.



Visitors enjoy the sunset after a rodeo. Hardwood decking conceals tree pits fitted between the green roof’s upturned structural beams, which frame out the entire assembly and allow for an average of 1,840-cubic feet of contiguous soil volume per tree.

Design Team
Client: Event Facilities Fort Worth, Inc.
Design Landscape Architect: Michael Vergason Landscape Architects, Ltd.
Landscape Architect of Record: SWA Group
Arena Design Architect: David M. Schwarz Architects, Inc.
Architect of Record: HKS, Inc.
Support Building Design Architect: Hahnfeld, Hoffer, & Stanford
Civil Engineer: Dunaway Associates, L.P.
Pre-Construction Services: The Beck Group
Structural Engineer: Walter P. Moore
MEP Engineer: Smith Seckman Reid, Inc.
Fire Protection and Code: FSC, Inc.
ADA Consultant: Access by Design
A/V Consultant: WJHW, Inc.

Photos: Michael Vergason Landscape Architects, Ltd.

Congratulations to Michael Vergason Landscape Architects.



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