Houston, Texas 
2017 AIA Houston Design Award Winner

The Homer Ford Tennis Center located in MacGregor Park’s 82-acre site, is well known for its tennis education facility. Brays Bayou frames the park’s northern edge, while the Metro’s light rail station on Martin Luther King Boulevard completes the southeasterly border near the park’s trail. Located within walking distance of the University of Houston and four miles away from downtown, MacGregor Park has long been considered an urban connectivity center, building the Third Ward and Sunnyside community with prominent business and city leaders, teachers and professional athletes. 

Zina Garrison an Olympic gold winning athlete and Wimbledon finalist, grew up playing tennis at John Wilkerson’s free tennis program at MacGregor Park. Upon returning to Houston, Zina Garrison and her coach, John Wilkerson, founded The Zina Garrison Tennis Academy. A free tennis education program inspired by Garrison’s achievements and Coach John’s legendary success of serving the community through tennis. The expansion of the academy is shaped by their unrelenting commitment to build the community one individual at a time. The academy’s vision is to provide a state-of-the-art tennis facility that supports the individual through education, wellness and sportsmanship. 


The design reinforces pedestrian connectivity by extending the existing trail through the site, stretching out into the rail station, and encouraging the public grounds to be shared by both users and non-users alike. 

By changing the orientation of the entry from the north to the south, the trail extension produces a direct connection between campus and public transportation, eliminating the need for additional parking. The pathways thicken under large overhangs or under existing oak and pine trees to accommodate seating for tennis watching. The arrangement of the four indoor tennis courts was driven by the conservation of the existing vegetated open space in an urban setting. The indoor courts are submerged reducing the amount of energy-required to cool the building and arranged along the edges of the site producing a hard-edge accessible enclosure.