As a city dominated by freeway infrastructure, Houston will be reconstructing portions of its iconic freeways in the near future. This created an opportunity for SWA to reclaim the Houston Interstate experience with a temporary art installation that provides a bold pop of color celebrating Houston’s diversity at eight key threshold bridges along the I-59/69 corridor. After winning a design competition held by Houston First Corporation, SWA developed a cost-effective and easily implementable urban art intervention that creates an impact perceptible at both a large scale and a high speed of travel through the freeway corridor. Spanning eight gateway bridges that connect some of the City’s most vibrant neighborhoods, a ribbon graphic featuring an artistically interpreted image of Houston was printed on plastic strips and woven into the existing 6 foot tall chain link fence railing.
The pixelated mosaics were derived from photographs taken by Houston school children in a project developed by Geoff Winningham and his wife, Janice Freeman. This urban art installation epitomizes the uniquely Houston experience through freeway infrastructure, the diversity of Houstonians, and the future of Houston. This approach to urban art in the right-of-way is an initial step in SWA’s vision for a larger beautification program of Houston’s Freeways.
To make the Houston Bridges project a reality, Houston First Corporation partnered with a consortium including Scenic Houston, TxDOT, HISD, the Mayor’s Office of Cultural Affairs, and Sparq 1200, in addition to SWA Group and Rice Professor/Author Geoff Winningham.
Thousand Oaks Urban Forestry Master Plan
While residents and businesses are clearly proud of the City of Thousand Oaks’ two-decade-long “Tree City USA” designation, recent drought conditions created an urgent need for the City to decrease grassy landscapes and update maintenance practices. As a key part of these efforts, the City selected SWA, along with team partners Planning & Energy/Entitlemen...
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...
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...
Promenade on Forest
Opened in June 2020, the Promenade on Forest transformed one of downtown Laguna Beach’s primary streets into a pedestrian-only promenade for the summer. The effort converted a three-block section of the road from a one-way vehicular corridor with angled parking stalls into a car-free zone with cafe seating, work from local artists, and retail display areas. Th...