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Buffalo Bayou Cistern
August 10, 2022 @ 9:45 am - 11:00 am
On Saturday, August 13th the club will visit the Cistern in Buffalo Bayou park.
About the Cistern
The Buffalo Bayou Park Cistern is a former drinking water reservoir built in 1926 for the City of Houston. As one of the city’s early underground reservoirs, it supported the municipal water system’s goals of fire suppression (water pressure) and drinking water storage. After operating for decades, an irreparable leak was discovered and after a few years, the reservoir was decommissioned in 2007.
In 2010, the City of Houston was sourcing vendors to demolish the Cistern. At the same time, Buffalo Bayou Partnership was developing the $58 million Buffalo Bayou Park project and “discovered” the site. Recognizing the historical and architectural significance of the highly unusual space, Buffalo Bayou Partnership with the City of Houston worked to take over development and maintenance of the space.
BBP restored and repurposed the Cistern into a magnificent public space to house an ambitious program of changing art installations. Houston-based architecture and engineering firm Page was charged with designing a ground-level entry structure to help transition visitors from the outside into the Cistern and making improvements to the shelf on the perimeter of the space to create a six-foot-wide, ADA compliant walkway with guardrails. In May 2016, Buffalo Bayou Partnership opened the Cistern to the public.
Fun Facts:
- 87,500 square feet or the size of 1.5 football fields
- 221– 25-foot tall, slender concrete columns span the space
- Holds 15 million gallons of water when functioning at capacity
- 8-inch thick concrete roof and tapered concrete walls range from 8 inches at the top to 18 inches at the bottom
- 17-second echo
- SWA Landscape Architect Kevin Shanley first called the reservoir “the Cistern” because it reminded him of the ancient Roman cisterns under Istanbul