Northwest Vista College is situated in the oak covered hills west of San Antonio, with beautiful views toward the city and surrounding valley. Previously the design team completed an extensive master plan that accommodated for the expansion of the college facilities to three times its current size. The design seeks to sensitively integrate the nearly 400,000 square feet of new buildings and associated roads and parking into the pristine oak covered hills that surround the campus. Careful grading and alignments of proposed infrastructure elements allows for the preservation of existing trees throughout the campus. Additional landscaping applies native plantings with minimal irrigation outside of the primary pedestrian gathering spaces. The heart of the campus incorporates a 2.5 acre lake situated in a natural ravine. The lake serves to visually connect the two sides of the campus while also providing for storm water detention requirements. Bio-filtration and stillen basins help to capture sediments and pollutants before releasing storm water flows into the natural drainage channels that exit the site to the south. The east side of the campus is formed by a series of new buildings terraced up a gentle hillside and arranged around a sloped quadrangle. A new fine arts center will anchor the upper portion of the quad, and serve as the architectural centerpiece of the campus as viewed from the lake below and surrounding community.
Miwok Aquatic and Fitness Center
Nestled in Novato’s rolling Oak woodlands, the College of Marin’s Miwok Aquatic and Fitness Center provides Northern California with a new destination for aquatic training and competitions. Part of the College’s Indian Valley Campus, the center neighbors over 1,400 acres of open space preserves. ELS and SWA worked closely to lay out the site ...
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...
Montclair State University Student Center and Quad
SWA/Balsley collaborated with DIG Architects and Montclair State University to reimagine the campus student center, adjacent quad, and connections to the surrounding campus. Through site analysis and project stakeholder meetings, key pedestrian and vehicular circulation routes were identified for resident students, daily commuters, and University staff. The st...
University of Houston Law Center
The University of Houston Law Center, established in 1947, has earned national recognition, with three of its programs ranked in the top 10 by U.S. News and World Report. Despite these academic accolades, the original Law Center building faced significant challenges due to its location and design. Situated in Houston’s low-lying coastal prairie ecoregion...