Yeah, but it’s finally going to have significant shade, when those trees grow up. A basically tree-less quad (I don’t really count Italian cypress) with sculpted hedges that frequently died, was pretty useless, all those years … like we just wanted some English castle lawn to look at from inside buildings. Aesthetically, I suppose empty lawns make the architecture of the quad stand out more…but, at ground level, trees and shade versus blinding heat, adds a lot too. but when it was 70-80 degrees out, yeah, the openness was nice.
I think there may have been more stately ways to introduce shade trees, but I'm no landscape architect. Just a disappointed alumnus, LOL.
There will be flowers, finally . But probably not stately, rather natural gardens. yeah, I don’t think there is any positive why to explain the asymmetrical paths, other than they are more practical for walking to the physics building and Duncan Hall, I guess. I do like the pagoda area in front of Fondren, that we can’t see in the photo, especially since Fondren has that back-door now leading to the coffee house. The landscaper architect explains the middle (that replaced Willie) is a meeting place and performance area … big eye-roll on that. https://arboretum.rice.edu/academic-quad-plant-species
We talked to a Hill Country arborist about planting new trees and which ones would be the healthiest and make shade fastest....she just said "live oak" I was wanting something a bit more interesting, we have live oaks everywhere
Change is good overall, and inevitable! I liked having the statue of the school's dead racist founder centered in the quad, but it was time for a change. we are triple-handedly ruining Unsorted, so I'll leave off on the Rice quad.
