UC Davis West Village is a new 225-acre development in Davis, California, that responds to a substantial growth in the number of students, faculty and staff living on the University’s campus. The city of Davis is a unique and cherished community, and great care was taken throughout the design and planning process to pay homage to its history and culture. The needs for the University include housing for approximately 3,000 students and 500 members of the University faculty and staff, as well as a mixed-use retail area, extensive parks and an open space network. SWA’s concept focuses on three key principals: housing affordability, quality of place, and environmental responsiveness. As a result, the Village is the largest planned zero-net energy community in the United States, combining compact walkable neighborhoods with sustainable initiatives such as an extensive bike network, permeable paving, solar thermal collectors, storm water management and conservation, and comprehensive tree shading. The community has achieved an exceptional 87% of initial ZNE goals in the first year. SWA’s design aesthetic focuses on integrating these initiatives in an authentically local manner, employing systems that work best with the local environmental condition. This balance between goals of sustainability and local cultural authenticity propels the project towards a cohesive network of program, circulation and outdoor spaces to serve the community. The project ultimately incorporates affordable housing in a neighborhood setting, while strengthening on-campus involvement, and creates a distinctive place to live in a pedestrian-oriented and bike-friendly environment.
CREATE Campus, National University of Singapore
CREATE, the Campus for Research Excellence and Technological Enterprise, is an international research campus and innovation hub at the National University of Singapore. Home to a vibrant scientific community, CREATE hosts the National Research Foundation, interdisciplinary research centers from top universities, and corporate laboratories such as the Singapore...
Soka University
When Japan-based Soka Gakkai International, one of the world’s largest lay Buddhist organizations, decided to establish a fully accredited liberal arts university in southern Orange County, SWA joined with the architects to create a setting that expresses the goals of the new university. Soka means “to create value” and the ideal of Soka education is to foster...
Stanford Campus Center
Stanford University Facilities Project Management. Cody Anderson Wasney Architects. The addition of the Campus Center required historic renovation, seismic retrofit and a new addition to mark this important intersection of the campus. Specimen elm, cedar, cypress and Japanese black pine provided the overall setting and the design worked to preserve these impor...
CSULB Liberal Arts Courtyards
The programming and design of the Liberal Art Courtyards were the result of the successful landscape master plan for 322 acres, completed by SWA in 2012 and enhancing the existing campus aesthetic and experience while improving functional relationships for its students, faculty, and community. Considerations included a wealth of open spaces largely devoted to ...