From its mountainside perch overlooking Seoul, the Samsung Museum of Art Complex boasts museums by three of the world’s most sought-after architects: Rem Koolhaas, Jean Nouvel and Mario Botta. Uniting these remarkable yet divergent works is an elegant, understated landscape. Complementing rather than competing with its muscular surroundings, the landscape is designed to provide the visitor with a rich visual palette. A visitor might rest on the long seat occupying the central platform; pause to admire the views from a series of terraced platforms leading down the slope; or enjoy the native plantings of azaleas, pine trees, and densely-planted birch trees.
A directional paving pattern, identity graphics, and LED art installations help guide movement through the site. This dynamic, architectural landscape takes full advantage of its extraordinary setting, mediating between the fixed structures of the buildings and artworks and the sensory surprises of the urban garden in constant flux.
The Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Center for the Visual Arts
The original Stanford campus museum was damaged in an earthquake in 1989. With help from major namesake donors to the museum, significant site improvements, expansion and seismic renovation improvements were accomplished. SWA provided master plan updates and full landscape architectural services including pedestrian pathways; two major terraces for displaying ...
National Civil Rights Museum
Located at the Lorraine Motel—site of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination on April 4, 1968—the National Civil Rights Museum serves as both a national institution and an international destination for reflection and remembrance. Led by Howard+Revis in collaboration with Self+Tucker and SWA, the west campus landscape design represents a return to a s...
California Academy of Sciences
One of San Francisco’s first sustainable building projects, the California Academy of Sciences supports a stunning 2.5-acre green roof. Emphasizing habitat quality and connectivity, the project has received two LEED Platinum certifications.
The building’s architectural team, the Renzo Piano Building Workshop (RPBW), invited SWA Group and horticultural c...
Dallas Museum of Art Competition
Within the winning team led by Nieto Sobejano Arquitectos, SWA’s landscape solutions for the Dallas Museum of Art (DMA) are fundamental to addressing the institution’s renovation goals. The transformation includes vibrant gathering spaces that communicate the Museum’s core values of community and environmental responsibility. These additions ...