Hennepin Avenue is the oldest street in Downtown Minneapolis, and has gone through multiple transformations over time. The street is undergoing a major reconstruction, and SWA is leading the effort to enhance the character of Hennepin for years to come. The conceptual approach was developed through a robust public engagement process, and touches on the three main themes. “Movement” speaks to the multi-modal energy of the Avenue as the new street layout widens its pedestrian realm, accommodates bike traffic with designated bikeways, and introduces a BRT line. “History” is an interpretive component that ensures that the layers of Hennepin’s famed past are celebrated, and “Spectacle” connects with the Theater District, creating a spectacular ambiance day-to-night and throughout the seasons.
In curating urban design and landscape elements, we accounted for seasonal maintenance practices to ensure sustainability of planting material and streetscape finishes.
Downtown Cairo Planning & Revitalization
The Khedive’s Cairo is often referred to as the heart of modern Cairo. Laid out by Ismail Pacha in the late 19th century, the Khedive’s Cairo was a physical manifestation of the governmental and societal evolution that the Khedive envisioned for Egypt. Like many American and European cities, time and intense pressures of popul...
Qatar Public Realm
SWA’s set of illustrative Design Guidelines promotes a public realm that is a relaxed manifestation of the Qatari vernacular landscape, and serve to maintain the locale’s cultural integrity. Unique among the fast-growing areas of the Gulf region, Doha’s landscape reflects a balance of cultural imp...
Halperin Park
In the 1950s, I-35E was routed through the South Dallas community of Oak Cliff, demolishing a thriving Black commercial corridor and one of the first Freedmen’s towns established after the Civil War. In the decades that followed, as in so many cities across the U.S., freeway construction severed long-standing social and economic ties and set in motion decades ...
East Blocks
50 years in the making, East Blocks envisions a new mixed-use neighborhood spanning 10 blocks of EaDo near Downtown Houston—building. Located within an already diverse, eclectic, and walkable arts and entertainment district, the design celebrates the neighborhood’s history as an industrial hub.
East Blocks will be developed in a multiphase process over ...