Harold Simmons Park

Harold Simmons Park frames Dallas’s river edge, reimagining civic infrastructure. West Overlook - the first phase - sits outside the active floodway and links West and East Dallas across a new land bridge over Beckley Avenue and the levee. The project's program - event lawn and building, café, cable ferry, play - organizes around a preserved 1,000-foot industrial shed, turning a former fabrication site into shade, quiet park space, and a continuous public link to the Trinity River.

Working closely with MVVA and Lake Flato as the project's structural engineer, we developed simple, durable systems that read clearly with the landscape. The two-story Event Building uses a steel post-and-beam frame with cross-braced bays for lateral resistance and composite diaphragms for drift control. Floors and the sawtooth roof are framed with mass-timber panels to achieve long, clean spans while keeping services inboard of the primary frame. On the east side, earthen-formed concrete walls and roof plates support green roofs and provide stiffness and thermal mass without compromising the open plan.

The Café repeats the hybrid logic (steel frame with mass-timber decking) supplemented by compact concrete dome forms that act as stiff cores. Bracing is tucked to perimeter lines to keep dining rooms column-free at views; overhangs, gutters, and roof edges are carefully detailed for positive drainage and long-term exposure.

Open-air structures - the Cable Ferry Pavilion and Playcove Restroom - use steel columns and beams with DLT roof panels over concrete substructures. Connections are corrosion-resistant, fasteners are concealed where possible, and bearing details accommodate temperature and moisture movement.

Renderings credit Lake Flato and MVVA.