Weill Lawn and Commons provide outdoor performance venues at Green Music Center, a world-class performing arts complex. The landscape architects prepared overall master planning and landscape architectural design. A simple, dramatic grading plan unifies project elements, directs circulation, and buffers concert venues from adjacent roadway traffic. Weill Lawn is the first acoustically protected outdoor venue on the West Coast for symphony orchestra and other highly polished musical performances. The lawn complements architect William Rawn’s design for the 1,600-seat Joan and Sanford I. Weill Concert Hall, which opened in September 2012 and is generally considered one of the world’s most acoustically superb concert venues. When the pavilion’s back wall is opened, Weill Lawn expands its interior capacity with a series of lawn terraces that accommodate up to 5,000 visitors in chairs or 1,600 seated at tables. Weill Commons provides a larger, informal amphitheater for 10,000 along with an open-air pavilion for major gatherings.
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...
Dallas Arboretum: A Tasteful Place
A year-round “food oasis” awaits visitors at A Tasteful Place, a new edible/display garden within the Dallas Arboretum. A continuation of SWA’s Arboretum work (which includes Red Maple Rill and the Children’s Garden), A Tasteful Place provides visual and hands-on education about plants and herbs that can be used in visitors’ daily cooking and explored in...
Downtown Jebel Ali Landscape Master Plan, UAE
Downtown Jebel Ali is a new development located 35 kilometers southwest of Dubai, along an 11 km stretch of Sheikh Zayed Road. Representing the first phase of a major mixed-use development on the outskirts of Dubai, the project includes two high-rise office buildings and two high-rise apartment buildings with access to Sheik Zayed Road. Mixed-use buildings and...
Yorba Linda Library + Arts Center
Here a new public library and cultural arts center were artfully sited to create memorable outdoor spaces. Working in collaboration with Group 4 architects, SWA transformed an earlier parking-fronted concept into a plan that resulted in landmark building and outdoor space composition along one of Yorba Linda’s main streets. The outdoor space – the Paseo – serv...