With the coming expansion and realignment of the highways around Downtown Houston, SWA identified the opportunity to enact a bold vision: a multi-use branded connectivity system that will leverage the immense reconstruction investment. SWA’s concept creates a continuous pedestrian loop over, under, and around the downtown highway system, thus redirecting the unpleasant experience and appearance of the freeway infrastructure into unique pedestrian-scale experiences while creating meaningful exchanges among neighborhoods and urban districts. The loop re-imagines the civic commons by artfully negotiating topography, land use, and natural resources. The renderings aim to demonstrate strategic investment zones that have the potential to initiate development of the Houston Green Loop. These visuals successfully served as a tool for communicating possibilities and investment value to the mayor’s stakeholder committee, which is comprised of prominent city officials, entrepreneurs, and philanthropists. As one example of a sustainable gesture along the Loop, at Frostown Crossing, the design proposal creates an outdoor amenity along a detention pond that is activated by the restoration of a historic bridge.
King Harbor Public Amenities Plan
SWA’s work on the King Harbor Public Amenities Plan manages the site’s vulnerability to severe ocean conditions by updating existing infrastructure, providing new programming, and creating a plan for sea-level rise and King Tides. The Amenities Plan serves as a powerful tool to guide growth both for the waterfront’s immediate future and its long-term success. ...
TxDOT Green Ribbon Project
The Green Ribbon establishes strategies for corridor aesthetics and landscape enhancements along Texas highways surrounding Houston. This plan addresses existing infrastructure and future expansion needs of the growing urban area.
The project focuses on intensive landscape plantings and architectural treatments, improving aesthetics while addressing air...
Guangming OCT Trail
With its grand landscape views, Guangming Trail is both a green, healthy “slow circulation” system in an urban area, and an exemplar of innovation and sustainability. The trail’s topography changes as it progresses through mountains, valleys, hills, and farms. By considering vegetation, habitats, hydrology, and topography, sites with high value and potential w...
Milton Street Park
Milton Street Park is a 1.2-acre linear urban park alongside the Ballona Creek Bike Trail in Los Angeles, California. The plan incorporates numerous green-design elements, including the use of recycled materials, native planting, flow-through planters and treatment alongside the 1,000-foot-long, 45-foot-wide stretch of land. A variety of special elements such...