TxDOT TEXAS TRAVEL INFORMATION CENTER AMARILLO

Location: Amarillo, Texas

Owner: Texas Department of Transportation Travel Division

A new visitor information center located at a sprawling suburban freeway site near the Amarillo airport. On the Texas high plains, vas grasslands are the dominant landscape feature, but periodically a creek slices a wandering path, exposing colorful earth, geologic history, and providing just enough moisture for a swath of trees and sometimes lush undergrowth. This design creates such a creek on the site and interprets the building as the inversion of the nearby Palo Duro Canyon, jutting upward from the creek. It is intended to convey to the visitor, not only the powerful sculpture of the canyon, but also a sense of the natural systems that created it.

2005 AIA Corpus Christi Honor Award || 2004 Texas Society of Architects Honor Award