Chase Center, the new Golden State Warriors’ arena, anchors and enlivens San Francisco’s emerging Sports and Entertainment District. Integrated along a transit corridor within a formerly industrial part of the city, this new 24/7 facility offers a venue for events of many scales as well as a central public open space that doubles as the neighborhood’s outdoor living room.
To create an inviting destination, landscape designers at SWA created a series of plazas that are at once distinctive and flexible. These public outdoor spaces are tucked and wrapped around the arena building at varying levels, offering discrete nooks or view platforms of different sizes and perspectives. A large, publicly accessible central plaza comfortably accommodates crowds during large events, and can be configured to meet different programmatic needs. Custom-designed planters/seating modules can be deployed throughout to frame different events or uses, such as ice skating, farmers’ markets, an instant micro-garden, or a car show, and can also aid pedestrian flow during large events at the arena.
Whether they have game tickets or not, visitors are invited to stroll up a grand staircase to take in spectacular views of the Bay, enjoy a picnic lunch, visit the retail and dining outlets, or meet friends for a movie alfresco.
Landscape design unifies and supports those activities with an environment that is strategic and sensible, attractive and sustainable. In fulfilling San Francisco’s strict codes for water runoff, designers created a special terraced garden along 3rd Street that defines both defines the new space and reveals the bio-filtration process by which plants help to cleanse all water on site. Native California planting throughout the ten-acre parcel of land conserves water, provides a shade canopy, and unifies the area’s character.
Regus Crest Grand
The Regus Crest Grand course is a private membership course designed for tournament play with a single story clubhouse. The clubhouse is sited to maximize views of the course and its surrounding hills. The heavily forested site is preserved and is enhanced and supplemented with new landscape. Water features are used to accentuate the hills beyond the course wh...
Rosewood Sand Hill Hotel
SWA provided full landscape architectural services for this mixed-use development, which includes a 120-room luxury hotel, five villa residences, a supporting office complex, fitness center, spa and multi-use space. The Sand Hill Hotel and associated offices are nestled onto a dramatic hillside that slopes toward the Santa Cruz Mountains immediately beyond I-2...
Hokkaido Ballpark Master Plan
This project includes a new ballpark for Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters, the surrounding landscape, and surrounding future development parcels, in Hokkaido, Japan. Inspired by the stadium’s architecture, which responded to a building type original to Hokkaido, the design incorporates indigenous landscape features, including a 100-year forest and a ravine, while ...
Innovation QNS
In the heart of Astoria, Queens, Innovation QNS transforms an underperforming light industrial district into a mixed-use neighborhood. Envisioned as a “15-Minute City,” the development blends affordable and market-rate housing, office space, hotels, retail, entertainment, and community facilities, served by multiple subway and bus lines providing access to Mid...