Architecture Center Houston is proud to announce their upcoming exhibition Verdant Laboratory by Falon Mihalic opening Thursday, June 12, 5:30-7:30pm, and continuing through August 22, 2025.
Verdant Laboratory transforms the gallery into a speculative ecology—part science lab, part art installation—that tells the story of Houston’s wild and often overlooked landscapes.
Through large-scale mixed media drawings, sculptures, and a video projection, Mihalic explores the living systems that form Houston’s foundation. Houston is not just a city built on bayous—it is a bayou. Situated at the intersection of the Galveston Bay estuary and coastal prairie, Houston exists within a dynamic and powerful web of water, soil, and biodiversity. Verdant Laboratory invites visitors to reconsider the city’s terrain not as backdrop, but as a vibrant, evolving protagonist.
“This work is about listening to the land,” said Falon Mihalic. “Houston’s ecology is alive. It floods, it heals, it reshapes itself. Through art and design, we can begin to see landscape not as a passive setting but as a resilient, responsive system essential to our urban future.”
As the effects of climate change become more visible and the city of Houston continues to grow, Verdant Laboratory prompts a critical conversation: How can we foreground landscape ecology in shaping the resilient cities of tomorrow? Join us as we reexamine what it means to live with, not just on, the land.
Event is free and open to the community.
Exhibition and programming sponsors:
Verdant Laboratory is funded in part by the City of Houston through Houston Arts Alliance; REES; CORT; and Houston Architecture Foundation.
Programming Partners
ASLA Texas, H/GC Section; Texas Parks & Wildlife
About
Falon Mihalic is a sculptor and landscape architect who began making art with watercolor paintings in 2007. Their projects investigate our perception of landscapes and ecology through site-specific works in light art, ceramics, and large-scale public art installations. Falon is a licensed landscape architect (TX, FL, IL) with a Master’s degree in Landscape Architecture from the Rhode Island School of Design and a B.A. in Natural Sciences from New College of Florida. Their work has been supported by the Kaboom Foundation, the Houston Mayor’s Office of Cultural Affairs, the Houston Arts Alliance, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Center for Spatial Studies at Rice University.
Falon has presented widely, including a recent international talk at the Center for Metropolitan Planning in Prague. They currently have multiple permanent public art commissions underway across the US.
