As a city dominated by freeway infrastructure, Houston will be reconstructing portions of its iconic freeways in the near future. This created an opportunity for SWA to reclaim the Houston Interstate experience with a temporary art installation that provides a bold pop of color celebrating Houston’s diversity at eight key threshold bridges along the I-59/69 corridor. After winning a design competition held by Houston First Corporation, SWA developed a cost-effective and easily implementable urban art intervention that creates an impact perceptible at both a large scale and a high speed of travel through the freeway corridor. Spanning eight gateway bridges that connect some of the City’s most vibrant neighborhoods, a ribbon graphic featuring an artistically interpreted image of Houston was printed on plastic strips and woven into the existing 6 foot tall chain link fence railing.
The pixelated mosaics were derived from photographs taken by Houston school children in a project developed by Geoff Winningham and his wife, Janice Freeman. This urban art installation epitomizes the uniquely Houston experience through freeway infrastructure, the diversity of Houstonians, and the future of Houston. This approach to urban art in the right-of-way is an initial step in SWA’s vision for a larger beautification program of Houston’s Freeways.
To make the Houston Bridges project a reality, Houston First Corporation partnered with a consortium including Scenic Houston, TxDOT, HISD, the Mayor’s Office of Cultural Affairs, and Sparq 1200, in addition to SWA Group and Rice Professor/Author Geoff Winningham.
Bagby Street Improvement Plan
Inspired by the success of Avenida Houston, on the east side of the city’s Downtown, Mayor Sylvester Turner wished to create something equally iconic on the west side. Bagby Street connects civic uses (including City Hall and its annex), cultural uses (Hobby Center, Bayou Place, and others) and parks (including Sam Houston Park and Tranquility Park).
Th...
Promenade on Forest
Opened in June 2020, the Promenade on Forest transformed one of downtown Laguna Beach’s primary streets into a pedestrian-only promenade for the summer. The effort converted a three-block section of the road from a one-way vehicular corridor with angled parking stalls into a car-free zone with cafe seating, work from local artists, and retail display areas. Th...
Ningbo East New Town Eco-Corridor
SWA provided planning and design services for the 3.3km long, 250-acre metropolitan Ningbo Eco-Corridor, which transforms a former agricultural plain that had been taken over by industrial use into urban green infrastructure. Located in the heart of the Yangtze River Delta on China’s coastline, Ningbo is one of China’s oldest cities, with an area of 3,616 squa...
Culver City Medians
The Culver Boulevard Median Park has worn many hats over time, from railroad right-of-way to freeway on-ramp to bike and pedestrian conveyance. Today the Median Park is being asked to do more. Introducing below-grade stormwater management, SWA is working with the community to finesse an intricate network of stormwater, biodiversity, traffic, and program. The p...