The Green Ribbon establishes strategies for corridor aesthetics and landscape enhancements along Texas highways surrounding Houston. This plan addresses existing infrastructure and future expansion needs of the growing urban area.
The project focuses on intensive landscape plantings and architectural treatments, improving aesthetics while addressing air quality and stormwater management concerns. The framework allows for large-scale improvements across a regional transect, accommodating local variation while maintaining cohesive standards.
A key achievement is the planting of over 2 million trees, enhancing the urban canopy. The plan’s flexibility enables local sub-districts to implement further enhancements through funding agreements with partners. The master plan serves as a living document, providing TxDOT with a foundation to incorporate evolving standards for Houston’s transportation infrastructure needs.
Guangzhou Axis District Planning
The Guangzhou Green Axis District Urban Design paved the way for new growth in one of China’s major metropolitan areas by bringing nature into the city, connecting people to the river and CBD, and providing a major park and open space for all ages. In the early 2000s, when the project commenced, Guangzhou was a rapidly growing city of approximately 8 million. ...
Nanhu New Country Village
China’s rapid urbanization over the past several decades has radically diminished its agricultural landscapes and labor force, focusing instead on industrial and technological advancements. The Nanhu New Country Village brings a contemporary approach to integrating agriculture and residences in a village setting, enhancing existing rural character, and improvi...
Houston Green Loop
With the coming expansion and realignment of the highways around Downtown Houston, SWA identified the opportunity to enact a bold vision: a multi-use branded connectivity system that will leverage the immense reconstruction investment. SWA’s concept creates a continuous pedestrian loop over, under, and around the downtown highway system, thus redirecting the u...
Lewis Avenue
In a city renowned for fantasy, the design of Las Vegas’ Lewis Avenue celebrates the local desert landscape and affirms the street as part of a real-world working district. It was one of the first projects to be implemented in Mayor Oscar B. Goodman’s 2000 Las Vegas Downtown Centennial Plan, aimed at revitalizing the historic downtown core. The City asked SWA,...