Parking Lots to Parks

Austin, TX

Description

Can a defunct shopping mall become a place of learning and community gathering? The leadership at Austin Community College thought so, but not without the right team. This short documentary explores the revitalization of the Highland Mall into a community college and parks, but the story of this plot of land north of Austin is also about recovering 100 years of history that was almost forgotten. See how the school and architectural team replace parking lots with parks and consumerism with education.

Objective

Launch a new series centered around Adaptive Reuse projects for our Design vs. Build platform.

Scope

🎥 3 person crew
🌞 4 day shoot
🌎 2 locations

Fun Facts

⏱️ This was originally intended to be a 90-second feature but evolved into the first episode of a new series

DOCU-TIP

Be open to where the story leads.

How We Did It

What began as a small feature on a single park expanded into a what’s becoming a brand new series. As we waded into the interviews and learned more of history of the site, we knew we had to do it justice and tell the whole story.

Initial interviews were carried out in dwg. offices and then expanded to include the Executive Vice Chancellor of Austin Community College as well as AGENDA Architecture, which were both shot in a single day on opposite sides of the campus.

The rest of the b-roll was captured over several days by a 2 man team.