A new residential tower has risen across the street from the Empire State Building. As a zoning incentive, a new public plaza was included to attract and accommodate the area’s tourists as well as its diverse office and residential neighborhood. The space is defined by a clean, contemporary design composition of spaces, elements and custom furniture meant to foster social seating. With very little sunlight available, the design has embraced glass-enclosed light elements such as pylons, feature walls, wall copings and in-ground linear fixtures to enrich the environment. Given the dearth of open spaces in the area and the high demand that was predicted through extensive research, a strategy for public seating choices was employed. A long distinctive banquette and entrance path is an armature from which shaded gardens, picnic tables and a raised seating overlook are arranged. The plaza has become an oasis of social activity throughout the day and brings tourists and hard-core New Yorkers together in a communal setting.
Guangzhou Vanke Center
Guangzhou Vanke Center incorporates commercial, and office uses in an urban setting. To echo the “cascading” concept of the architectural design, the landscape architecture was inspired by the fluidity of water, as well as the unique local cultural heritage of dragon boats. The design provides for different types of social activity with variously scaled spaces...
La Plaza Cultura Village
Located within El Pueblo, the birthplace of Los Angeles, La Plaza Cultura Village is a mixed-use, transit-oriented development totaling 425,000 square feet of retail, apartments (20 percent of which are low income units), cultural facilities, and public open space. Two large, surface parking lots have been transformed into a vibrant community that builds upon ...
Zifeng Tower Nanjing
Nanjing Greenland International Commercial Center is an urban high-rise project containing two major sites, A1 and A2. The 450-meter main tower, Zifeng Tower, with its concentric rings of mixed trees and linear water features, is the focus of the A1 site. The landscape design encompasses existing parks as well as the adjacent historic features in o...
Monet Avenue 2.0 at Victoria Gardens
A decade after completing Victoria Gardens, the owner was looking to refresh the project to keep it relevant for years to come. SWA redesigned a three-block streetscape and plaza along Monet Avenue, a main retail street there. The focus is on the next generation of users, with a shopping environment that highlights the social landscape and blurs the lines betw...