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.
Library of Congress Packard Campus
A 45-acre site 70 miles southwest of Washington, D.C. serves as the home for the Library of Congress’s Motion Picture, Broadcasting, and Recorded Sound Collections. The 400,000-square-foot complex consolidates the world’s largest audio-visual collection and provides improved facilities for research, digital conversion, long-term conservation, and public apprec...
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...
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 ...
Fort Worth Museum of Modern Art
SWA was selected to provide design services for the new Modem Art Museum of Fort Worth located across the street from the renowned Kimbell Art Museum designed by architect Louis Kahn. The direction for the landscape concept here evolved from the vision of Japanese architect Tadao Ando, whose design was selected as the winning entry in an international invitati...