This office building’s roof garden celebrates a potent image of the native Texas landscape: the level, grass-covered plains emerging from a wooded riparian area. A design vocabulary of native, drought-tolerant plant materials, especially selected to react to light and air movement, reinforces this design approach. The project serves as a two-acre rooftop garden for employees of this regional headquarters at the edge of Dallas’ downtown core. From the high-rise building, the garden enriches a foreground view against the dramatic Texas skies beyond. The design interprets the regional landscape in several ways. The curvilinear walk is a metaphor for the “stream,” bordered by a display garden of native annuals and perennials and backed by a thicket of native birch. This “woods,” underlain by Texas riparian groundcovers and perennials, is placed at the base of the building to separate the garden, provide privacy to the workers at this level and mitigate the scale of the building. The “plains” are a combination of native grasses organized in long wedges of perfectly horizontal green and abstractly eroded by a geometry of sloping pathways. The project uses native drought-tolerant plantings, such as Buffalo Grass, Red Yucca and perennials, wherever possible to educate and expose visitors and employees to the aesthetic strengths of regional materials, and to reduce long-term water needs and other horticultural costs.
All of the plant material is dynamic through the seasons: the birch has fall color and is leafless in the winter; the flowering natives bloom alternately year-round; and the buffalo grass changes its texture and shade of green during the year. Street level planting, including native Texas Red Yucca and Southern Red Oaks, marries the project to its urban surroundings. The project’s constraints of severe loading restrictions, waterproofing concerns and low budget led to a simple design that is a study in contrasting planes. The absolute prohibition on slab penetrations resulted in a structural slab that slopes away from the towers for the full width of the garden. On this sloping surface, the landscape architects gradually increased soil depths from 12 to 30 inches in order to maintain the level quality of the Texas plains. As a result, the gravel paths emerge as arroyos, seemingly eroded in these thin panels of native grasses.
ARTIC – Anaheim Regional Transportation Intermodal Center
ARTIC, the new 16-acre Anaheim Regional Transportation Intermodal Center in Southern California, forms a seamless gateway from Anaheim to all of Orange County, spurring economic growth and community redevelopment throughout the region. The landscape design establishes a unique and identifiable image for the ARTIC Mixed-Use District by complementing the site’s ...
Rosewood Sand Hill Hotel
SWA provided full landscape architectural services for this mixed-use development, which includes a 120-room luxury hotel, five villa residences, a supporting office complex, fitness center, spa and multi-use space. The Sand Hill Hotel and associated offices are nestled onto a dramatic hillside that slopes toward the Santa Cruz Mountains immediately beyond I-2...
Kaohsiung Waterfront Renovation
SWA, in association with Morphosis Architecture and CHNW, developed a vision for the future of Kaohsiung Harbor Wharfs, which includes 114 hectares of prime waterfront property formerly used for cargo shipping. The site, located in the shipping heart of Kaohsiung, Taiwan, was historically subjected to environmental neglect and rampant uncontrolled development....
Dubai Opera District
The elegant and the everyday coexist harmoniously in Dubai’s new Opera District, is a stylish cultural destination set to promote culture and the arts, stimulate global exchange, encourage local talent, and serve as a vibrant events venue. Dramatic view corridors lead to both to the opera house and to the adjacent spectacle of the world’s tallest building—the ...