DETAILS
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.
Jeffrey Open Space Park
The Jeffrey Open Space Park represents approximately 96 acres of park and trails, with an average width of 265 ft. The three-mile long spine is designed for passive uses with a network of trails that connect to residential neighborhoods and active recreation parks.
The design process included a series of community workshops to solicit community’s commen...
Katy Trail
Katy Trail represents a remarkable resource for the residents of the Dallas Fort Worth region. Conceived in 1870, the M. K. and T. Railway united the North and South via railroad. Today, a portion of this now abandoned linkage serves as a unifying element for the many users living nearby. The project provides approximately 3.5 miles of intercity bicycle and pe...
Luohu Station
Luohu Land Port and Train Station is a border control area and the busiest place in Shenzhen, China. As such, the city was faced with the challenge of moving as many as 600,000 people per day and determined to build a subway. Under the auspices of the Shenzhen Municipal Planning Bureau, a team of consultants from eight different countries worked together on th...
Beijing Finance Street
Awarded after an international competition, the Beijing Finance Center Master Plan creates an international destination in West Beijing. The project, which includes a mix of uses—housing, retail, hotel office and cultural facilities—is focused in terms of the landscape design on a central park known as “The Heart” of western Beijing. SWA’s wo...