Perched on the edge of San Francisco Bay, the Hunters Point Shipyard was an important naval manufacturing center for the WWI and WWII war efforts. The abandoned shipyard and Candlestick Point were combined into a new, mixed-use residential, retail and light industry development—the largest in San Francisco since WWII. Thomas Balsley Associates collaborated with urban planners IBI Group in developing an innovative urban plan whose parks and open spaces exploit the site’s extraordinarily diverse waterfront and views as well as its rich maritime heritage. The plan combines the proposed Forty-Niners football stadium within the new mixed-use community with a sustainable system of smart streets, bikeways and diverse parks, including California’s first urban state park, redesigned to function as the front lawn to San Francisco’s Bayview and Hunters Point Community. A lively network of neighborhood parks, plazas, linear boulevard parks, roof deck recreation areas, and a continuous waterfront park trail and bikeway system knits the spaces together and connects the upland community to its new shipyard neighbors and the extraordinary bay environment. The state park’s grassland and natural shoreline has been retooled into a landscape of the highest standards of environmental and social sustainability.
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...
Qingdao SIIC International Financial Center
Qingdao is the birthplace of Tsingtao Beer and, for over 20 years, the Tsingtao International Beer Festival was held on this site. SWA played a crucial role in preserving the community’s cultural landmark status as the land surrounding the festival site was transformed into a new urban campus and transit hub. Recently completed, the Qingdao SIIC International ...
Cross Creek Ranch
As urban areas expand, degraded lands robbed of natural resilience and biodiversity often lie in development’s path—presenting both challenges and opportunities. The Flewellen Creek Restoration project transforms a derelict 130-acre ranching ditch into a vibrant 3-mile ecosystem, anchoring the new 3,200-acre Cross Creek Ranch community.
Rooted in ...
Magee Ranch
The project site is a beautiful 540-acre hillside ranch in suburban Contra Costa County, California. It was slated for development by the City of Danville as a clustered planned community. The development concept was to preserve the essential beauty of the ranch and to allow some 300 homes to be built with the least possible impact. The City’s Planning C...