Summer Student Programs
For the past 50 years, SWA’s Summer Student Program has gathered emerging designers from a wide range of backgrounds to explore critical questions influencing the design industry at large—many of whom have become leaders within the firm and discipline.
Each year, we invite full-time, upper-level undergraduate and graduate students in landscape architecture, urban planning, urban design, and architecture to apply. Applicants must be returning to their academic program in the following school year, meaning recent graduates are ineligible. Program locations and subject matter vary by year, but include a stipend and housing for the full duration of eight weeks. The program is an in-person commitment including site visits, lectures, discussions, and critiques.
Exploring Southern California’s Wildland-Urban Interface
In 2025, nearly one-third of Americans live in the “wildland-urban interface,” or WUI—a turbulent zone where suburbs meet wilderness, infrastructure meets ecology, and a warming, drying climate raises the stakes for how we live and build. In California, where cities continue to expand into fire-prone terrain due to a statewide housing crisis, the WUI is particularly fraught and consequential. Working with local experts—including a wildfire ecologist, former fire marshal, and biogeographer—students visited active sites across Santa Barbara County and, for their final presentations, developed planning proposals for the Glen Annie Golf Course, a 175-acre parcel newly designated for development under the county’s Housing Element Update. From the outset, the program emphasized the WUI as more than a boundary, but a design challenge threaded through statewide issues of housing affordability, public health, ecological stewardship, and equitable development. Taken together, the students’ projects offer a diverse set of strategies. Below are a few common threads that emerged.
Learn more
Read the web story.
Taking on Extreme Heat in Downtown Houston
2024 was the hottest year in recorded history. In Sunbelt cities, the effect was visceral and deadly, disproportionately impacting communities reliant on public transportation, parks, and housing for cooling. In a world transformed by extreme heat, our public realm and buildings must adapt, and today’s designers and planners must rework the toolkit that created our overheated cities for a more just and livable world. In 2024, students worked alongside professional designers and community stakeholders to develop an actionable plan for Downtown Houston that weaves together open space improvements, climate adaptation strategies, and social infrastructure.
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Read the web story.
Reimagining the Future of North America’s Largest Container Port
In 2023, the students worked with North America’s largest port—the Port of Los Angeles—to reimagine an eight-mile stretch of the San Pedro Waterfront. As an extension of the San Pedro Waterfront Connectivity Plan, the program explored a variety of transportation methods and mobility solutions to get to the LA Waterfront and navigate among its areas and attractions. These recommendations include new and improved pedestrian and vehicular routes, transit, crosswalks, wayfinding signage, and open space, as well as active programming.
Learn more
Read the web story.
Read about the project in Urbanize LA.
Designing at the Epicenter of the Wildfire Crisis
As we confront a new era of megafires, designers and planners are instrumental in protecting disaster-weary communities. In 2022, the students investigated California’s escalating wildfire crisis and explored the new disciplinary approaches—both technical and ideological—that are necessary to address this challenge.
Learn more
Download the book.
Read the web story.