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| Landscape Architect - David Hocker "Creating healthy spaces that continue to grow and mature with time." by Christina Gaona The existing Texas landscape, which extends across multiple regional zones, provides the vast palette of plant material that inspires and appears in many of David Hocker's high-designed landscape architecture projects. As the owner of Hocker Design Studio, Hocker extrapolates inspiration from the challenges of contextualizing his projects in the harsh Black Land Prairie environment of North Texas. By incorporating native plant material into his designs, one discovers a sense of the agrarian and rural, even in his ultra-modern designs. . |
| "Every project or garden is a small ecosystem that is set in an urban environment. So my inspiration comes from the surrounding landscape whether east or west Texas or the Hill Country. By taking some of that imagery and applying it to my designs, natural rock outcropping begins to transform into an idea for a steel cage wall brimming with rocks. It's like we're containing some of the native by taking that imagery and applying it to whatever scale we're working on." |
| Whether working on a small-scale residential garden or a large urban project, Hocker focuses on creating highly site-specific designs that respond to both architecture and site. By utilizing a native and adaptive palette, conscious planning allows Hocker to foresee how a project will manifest itself as it matures over time. With each project, however, comes a new and different challenge. For Hocker, a site with no existing trees is as much of a challenge as a site with several mature trees that need to be treated and protected. |
| Hocker’s interest in learning about a site’s former life and his strong architectural sense render his approach to design a truly dynamic process and his commitment to native plant material produces thought-provoking designs that are meant to thrive. Hocker also emphasizes the importance of combining textures of green-colored plant material with colors and textures of modern architectural elements – those that exhibit a high sense of art and architecture. |
| “The architectural elements that you see in our work or any elements that relate back to the house, have a very high level of detail and often require interesting construction methods. Using native plants creates a much more subtle color palette in which varying shades of green appear. I am more interested in working with different textures; by layering them any color is brought out by architectural elements.” For Hocker, landscape architecture is as much about design as it is about educating himself and promoting new ways to create better conditions for his existing and future projects. Hocker’s sense of environmental responsibility as a landscape architect and his appetite for learning emphasizes his determination to represent multiple levels of meaning through his work. |
| “I believe that we have a good sense of design, our process is good, and we collaborate well with architects – I want to take that further and keep bringing in and infusing my work with native plant material. By asking questions like, ‘How can we make things better? How can we get this tree to grow and be even more successful in an urban environment? How can we protect these trees and treat them as investments?’ my work becomes more about education; it is not all about design. It’s about creating healthy spaces that are going to continue to grow and mature with time.” |
| David Hocker has recently received national recognition for two of his landscape architecture designs. He was awarded with two of twelve American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) honor awards in 2010 for his innovative landscape design on the Power House and Pool House projects. Each project – Power House: a 1930s renovation site, and Pool House: a new construction site – integrates site, architecture, and nature seamlessly while utilizing native plant material and highly- designed modern architectural features. Today, Hocker continues work on several sustainable projects including landscape for the new construction project and LEED certified Da Vinci School in Dallas, Texas and a residence in Farmer’s Branch which features an entirely native plant palette, accommodates 20,000 gallons of rainwater collection on-site, and incorporates rock and recycled concrete into the landscape architecture. |
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