In collaboration with architects Group 4 and HMC, SWA transformed Chabot College’s predominantly paved Grand Court into an outdoor living room at the heart of the 14,000-student campus. The opportunity to reimagine the space came in conjunction with siting, massing, and designing the new iconic, three-story faceted library where the campus’ main walks intersect.
Alongside the library’s lobby and cafe, a series of long wood slat benches occupy Chochenyo Plaza, a space to study, dine, and socialize. Chabot College is located on the traditional lands of the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe, and within the plaza, phrases in the tribe’s Chochenyo language cast into the pavement embed cultural meaning into the everyday campus experience.
The site design also resculpted the upper edge of the original lawn amphitheater, adding a new row of trees and seating to frame both the amphitheater and provide foliage for the reading rooms above. Furthermore, the site design softened the Grand Court’s elliptical perimeter concrete arcade with a row of deciduous trees. An outdoor terrace on the third floor provides long views of the East Bay Hills.
Stanford Center for Advanced Study in Behavioral Sciences
Sitting atop a hill above Stanford University’s campus, the Center for Advanced Study in Behavioral Sciences (CASBS) has long been a destination for groundbreaking thinkers, with 30 Nobel Prize winners, 25 Pulitzer Prize winners, 52 MacArthur Fellows, and 176 members of the National Academy of Sciences among the esteemed class of Fellows. Situated between the ...
Cañada College Kinesiology & Wellness
In collaboration with ELS, SWA designed a new landmark for Canada College: the Kinesiology & Wellness Center. The project replaced a windowless 1960s-era gym building and outdoor asphalt yard with the glassy new building and infinity pool deck on this hilltop campus with fantastic views. The project also created a new campus arrival and ceremonial overlo...
Medgar Evers College
This new quad provides a unifying pedestrian connection between Bedford and Franklin Avenues and between existing and new campus buildings, finally providing the campus with a cohesive identity and sense of place. With the dramatic transformation of a parking lot into more campus green space comes the opportunity to integrate a series of sustainability strateg...
RIT Global Village and Global Plaza
Global Village, a pedestrian-only infill neighborhood adjacent to Rochester Institute of Technology’s academic core, and its mixed-use centerpiece, Global Plaza, create a social heart for 17,200 students and 3,600 faculty and staff. The landscape architects and architects collaborated on an urban design that establishes multiple “crossroads” ...