First U.S. Ismaili Center Coming To Buffalo Bayou Area In 2024
The first U.S. Ismaili Center, set to rise on 11 acres along Allen Parkway and Montrose Boulevard in Houston, will break ground next year for a 2024 completion.
The Ismaili Center Houston will serve as a cultural and educational site for Ismailis, members of a sect of Shia Islam. Ismaili nonprofit the Aga Khan Foundation bought the land in 2006, selecting Houston for its first such center due to its general diversity and Ismaili population.
U.K.-based Farshid Moussavi designed the center’s building while Thomas Woltz of Nelson Byrd Woltz Landscape Architects, who helped design the Memorial Park Master Plan, designed the center gardens. Keeping in trend with increased design focus on green spaces, the center will be surrounded by gardens, using Texan plants coupled with Islamic-inspired landscaping.
Ismaili centers exist elsewhere in London, Lisbon, Dubai, Vancouver and Toronto. Similar to the Houston location, they are influenced by their own local design, executive architect DLR Group said.
“This center is designed with the purpose of serving as both a Jamatkhana for the Shia Ismaili Muslim community to come together for prayers, spiritual search, and contemplation; as well as an ambassadorial cultural center for the city and state, driving knowledge sharing and thought partnership,” Ismaili Council for the United States President Al-Karim Alidina said in a statement. A Jamatkhana is a term for Ismaili gathering places.
Though the coronavirus pandemic created a surge in developer desire to build green spaces in office and retail construction, the trend toward expansive outdoor gathering areas has been in place for some time.
In Dallas, Bisnow reported that tenants are paying more for access to green space. In Chicago, developers were taking advantage of large vacancies to transform them to green space, spending millions on renovations.
Buffalo Bayou, adjacent to the center, has long been home to large projects that take advantage of the environment around it. The Buffalo Bayou Partnership has spent billions on expanding the area, which will see new developments like a Hanover mixed-use, the $500M mixed-use The Allen, and Post Houston, which opened last week.
