Passive Garden Becomes Active Outdoor Space 
{"autoplay":"true","autoplay_speed":"8000","speed":"1000","arrows":"true","dots":"false","loop":"true","nav_slide_column":5,"rtl":"false"}
{"autoplay":"true","autoplay_speed":"8000","speed":"1000","arrows":"true","dots":"false","loop":"true","nav_slide_column":5,"rtl":"false"}

DETAILS

LocationSanta Clara, California United States
ClientBixby Land Company
Size2.4 acres

The site design is charged with a strong geometric pattern formed through large swaths of native planting, decking, and sunken courts. A rectangular grid is enhanced by intersecting materials, textures, light, and shade. Subtle grade changes create opportunities for seat walls and sunken gardens.  The intimate spaces that result provide for gathering, conversation, and recreation; together, they produce a large and flexible outdoor space with a single identity. The former planting scheme was an amalgamation of discordant plant species that required different maintenance and watering regimes and also conveyed an inconsistent character. Our transformation highlights drought-tolerant and native species in three defined planting blocks that create visual continuity across the site. An existing pond divided the interior courtyard with a spatial vacuum, leaving small residual spaces ill-suited to outdoor gathering or recreation. With its removal, the new design enables connection across the courtyard and the addition of a café pavilion, wood deck, two bocce ball courts, a break-out lawn, and ample seating. A deck allowed leveling the grade across the former pond without using imported soil.

Related Projects

Poly Dawangjing Office Complex

SWA’s landscape design for the Poly Dawangjing Office Building Complex draws on fluidity, suggesting pebbles (the development’s three towers) set within the intersection of two waterway corridors. The landscape forms of the drop-off courts, central arrival plaza, and planting areas are also characteristic of this fluvial influence. Broad ribbons of riparian ve...

East Evelyn Avenue

301-381 East Evelyn Avenue is home to a uniquely preserved architectural example of 1980s office park design. The aim of this project is to retrofit this suburban office campus into a diverse, connected, and urban environment. SWA approached the site from the same perspective as that taken for successful urban neighborhoods. A hierarchy of outdoor realms organ...

Roche Diagnostics

As the first manufacturing facility in Asia, Roche Diagnostics hopes to set a model for future projects in the region. Located in Suzhou, a city with a strong tradition of gardening, this flagship factory will not only meet Roche’s global standard, but will be infused with the spirit of the city’s gardens, distinguishing it from a stereotypical factory. A clea...

CSCEC Steel Headquarters Office and Museum

CSCEC Steel is a division of the world’s largest construction company, China State Construction Engineering Corporation Limited. CSCEC Steel is recognized as a leading global steel structure manufacturer; their projects include the CCTV Headquarters in Beijing, the Shanghai IFC, the new Abu Dhabi International Airport, and the 26th Universiade Main Stadium. To...

Tian’An Cyber Park

Established in 1990, Tian’An Cyber Park is the biggest industrial real estate investment company in China, providing flexible and affordable office space that allows hundreds of entrepreneurs to grow and thrive. The strategically placed park in Longgang is a multi-functional development with retail and office space, an I-MAX cinema, and headquarters for multip...

Exxon Corporate Headquarters

Exxon’s Corporate Headquarters is situated on 200 acres of rolling mesquite woodland in Texas’ Las Colinas Development. The design captures the essence of a subtle Texas landscape by careful selection of native plants and preservation of existing woodland and wetland areas. The building itself is surrounded by a more “domestic” landscape within a forest ...

DNP Office Towers

SWA provided landscape architectural services for a new office tower including the arrival plaza, west and north gardens and upper on-structure view terraces at the 8th and 9th floors. The goal of the design was to broaden and strengthen a designated green spine through an urban redevelopment zone and to create a landscape-dominated environment in a dense urba...

Xingfa Cement Plant Renovation

Located next to a public rural quarry park, Xingfa Cement Plant is set to be transformed into a national advance science research facility, contributing to the establishment of Huairou Science City. The team of landscape architects and architects worked in close collaboration to preserve valuable cement factory buildings, production structures, existing trees,...