SWA’s master plan for the three Nordic Events venues—the Ski Jumping, Cross Country Skiing, and Biathlon stadia and courses—honors the natural beauty of a spectacular Olympic Winter Games landscape as never before. The venues were originally slated to be located in separate valleys, requiring athletes and spectators to travel between sites. But in PyeongChang, SWA departed from that logic and instead took their cues from the landscape itself, resulting in the most compact design in Olympic Winter Games history. Locating all events in one valley achieved two goals: creating the most efficient and exciting experience for athletes and visitors to the Games, and minimizing disruption of the region’s steep terrain and pristine pine forests. In PyeongChang, pedestrians flowed along a continuous promenade between these venues, saving hours of shuttle bus time while also being immersed in a high-octane sports experience. The arrival sequence to the Ski Jumping Stadium is choreographed to build viewer excitement, beginning with a plaza flanked by three practice jumps, the monorail station—which transports athletes, coaches, and officials to the tower and Large Hill and Normal Hill in-runs—and culminating in the Ski Jumping Stadium itself. The design was created for the 2014 Olympic Winter Games bid and ultimately built to bolster Korea’s successful 2018 bid. The venue remains active in summer with an 18-hole golf course, roller-blade training, and a soccer pitch, replacing the snow sports.
Nanjing International Youth Cultural Centre
SWA was retained to design the landscape of this mixed-use development collaboratively with Zaha Hadid Architects. It contains performing arts, hotel, residential, office and retail functions. Located adjacent to SWA’s Nanjing Youth Olympic Park, the design strives to merge architecture, the park landscape, and people at this iconic focal point. Landform...
Rio 2016 Olympic Park Competition
SWA was awarded 2nd place in the 2016 Olympic Park Competition in Rio de Janeiro for their master plan and landscape architecture proposal. The Olympics will be located on a 118-hectare site in the neighborhood of Barra da Tijuca. The underlying concept of ‘Embrace’ weaves through the design in a grand planning gesture, which both defines the Olympic Games and...
Chase Center Entertainment District
Chase Center, the new Golden State Warriors’ arena, anchors and enlivens San Francisco’s emerging Sports and Entertainment District. Integrated along a transit corridor within a formerly industrial part of the city, this new 24/7 facility offers a venue for events of many scales as well as a central public open space that doubles as the neighborhood’s outdoor ...
2010 Asian Games Village
SWA collaborated with the Guangzhou Urban Planning Design & Survey Institute on a new urban design concept for the 2010 Guangzhou Asian Games. Situated between mountains to the North and the Pearl River to the South, Guangzhou has a unique condition, which allows for the use of existing water channels for the framework of a new open space network. By abstr...