SCHAUM/SHIEH & SWA Group collaborate on Smith Oaks Sanctuary, High Island, TX

High Island, TX—The Houston- and New York City-based architectural studio SCHAUM/SHIEH has designed two buildings as part of the newly rehabilitated Smith Oaks Sanctuary, a 177-acre bird refuge in High Island, Texas run by the Houston Audubon Society. SCHAUM/SHIEH joined the landscape design studio SWA Group’s team on the Smith Oaks Sanctuary rehabilitation project in 2016, working collaboratively with SWA and client Houston Audubon Society. The team has planned numerous subtle interventions into the landscape that balance visitor accessibility with wildlife conservation and avian migration and nesting patterns. 

SCHAUM/SHIEH’s renovation of a historic 1920s brick pumphouse and design for a new information kiosk and refreshing station were planned in concert with SWA Group’s design for the Kathrine G. McGovern Canopy Walkway, a 700-foot-long elevated boardwalk and trail system below. Overall, the project celebrates the post-industrial return of wildlife to the area—the result of decades-long conservation and clean-up efforts responding to the Gulf Coast’s history as an oil and gas extraction hub. “High Island is such a critical habitat that sits at the cultural and geographic intersection of so many forces that define life on the gulf coast like weather, wildlife, and geology,” says Troy Schaum, co-principal of SCHAUM/SHIEH. “With our restoration of the pumphouse and design for the services building, we are hoping to support a more resilient infrastructure for the ecologies that are supported in this interaction.”

All structures are set thoughtfully into the sanctuary’s unique landscape of fields, woods, wetlands and ponds, which has become an important stop for many birds on their North-South migratory path and subsequently a haven for avid birders. The environment is especially unique for its network of freshwater reservoirs, which were abandoned by a past generation of Amoco oil extraction facilities and have since become a nesting ground and rest stop for a range of bird species. 

A relic of Amoco’s early 20th-century presence on the Gulf, the brick pumphouse sits at the sanctuary’s entrance and has been transformed by SCHAUM/SHIEH into a bright, airy visitor center. The abandoned brick structure was repointed and cleaned, exposing the intricacy of the original cast-concrete ceiling. The studio also updated windows and added doors and canopies to make the space a useful refuge for gatherings away from the area’s heat and resident mosquitoes. 

As the gateway to the property, the pumphouse serves as an information and coordination hub for peak-season birding activities, as well as a hub for habitat protection and conservation work that happens throughout the year. The building incorporates low-energy passive cooling strategies that capitalize on the existing thermal-mass in the concrete foundations, while new fans move the air through and out of the ceiling in warm periods.

A concrete path connects the pumphouse to a new, adjacent structure, designed by SCHAUM/SHIEH, which comprises restrooms, water fountains, and an information kiosk. 

Gabled metal in deep gray clads the roof and extends down two sides of the building, doubling as exterior walls. Concrete masonry walls peek out from underneath the roof’s long eaves and are painted “Audubon Green,” a color that nods to the Houston Audubon Society’s brand identity while also blending with the surrounding plantlife. The concrete and metal material palette creates a clean environment for refreshing after a drive to the remote site, while the organic color scheme complements the natural environment.

Like the pumphouse, the building is sized to accommodate day-to-day visits as well as the crowds that show up from around the world for peak season in the Spring. It is passively cooled and ventilated as part of a larger energy and water conservation strategy in the project. “The habitat is so vibrant and really the centerpiece, and the buildings are an extension of that habitat which supports its stewards and visitors,” says Rosalyne Shieh, co-principal of SCHAUM/SHIEH. ​ ​ ​

“The architecture is designed to be durable—given the harsh climate—and help create an identity for the location that makes the sanctuaries more inviting for the uninitiated who make the trek to this special spot gulf on the coast,” says Schaum. 

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Project credits:

Location: Smith Oaks Sanctuary Houston

Client: Audubon Society Houston

Landscape and Canopy Walk: SWA Group Houston; Team: Natalia Beard, Matt Baumgarten, Rhett Rentrop, Andrew Gressett)

Pumphouse and Services Building: SCHAUM/SHIEH; Team: Troy Schaum, Rosalyne Shieh, Andrea Brennen, Sheila Mednick, Ekin Erar, Zhiyi Chen

Structural/MEP Engineer: Hunt & Hunt Engineering Corp; Project Lead: Larry Hunt

Contractor: Millis Development & Construction, LLC; Project Lead: Jack Christison

About SCHAUM/SHIEH:

SCHAUM/SHIEH is a small architectural collaboration operating between Houston, TX and New York City. Rosalyne Shieh and Troy Schaum established SCHAUM/SHIEH in 2010 around overlapping interests in art, form, and the city, and have developed a dialogue through projects ranging from buildings and installations to speculative projects and unsolicited urban plans. The practice has a particular interest in the city at the scale of the building, both as a site of theoretical experimentation and as a reality that may be transformed through building. They work at a range of scales, with completed projects in Detroit, New York, Houston, and Virginia. 

Recent and ongoing work includes a masterplan for the Judd Foundation and a restoration of ​ the Chamberlain Building for the Chinati Foundation, both in Marfa, Texas, the headquarters for an arts institution in Houston, and proposals for a residential tower on Park Avenue in New York City. SCHAUM/SHIEH was named a 2019 Emerging Voices winner by The Architectural League of New York, a finalist in the 2017 MoMA PS1 Young Architects Program and named one of the 2016 New Practices New York by the AIA. Their work has been exhibited at the Venice Biennale, Art Prize in Grand Rapids, the Storefront for Art and Architecture, and the Center for Architecture in New York. Schaum is an Associate Professor at Rice School of Architecture and Shieh teaches at MIT, where she is the Marion Mahony Fellow in Architecture.

About SWA Group 

 SWA is a world-renowned landscape architecture, planning, and urban design firm celebrated for its creativity, responsiveness, and design excellence. Our work gives new life to outdoor spaces at multiple scales – from public plazas to waterfronts to entire city districts – harnessing natural systems while enhancing the unique characteristics of each setting. SWA has studios in Dallas, Houston, Laguna Beach, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Sausalito and Shanghai. For more information, please visit www.swagroup.com.