“The vision for Martin Luther King Jr. Square leverages site design to demonstrate a different future for storm water management in Conway. The park will transform a brownfield site plagued by flooding into a lively storm water park and cultural asset for the city.”
– City of Conway, Arkansas
The City of Conway received local and federal grants to create a water quality demonstration park in a flood-prone, one-block area of its downtown to educate the public about Low Impact Development (LID) and Green Infrastructure (GI) methods and how they can enhance water quality. The project transformed a remediated brownfield site, subject to seasonal flooding, into a 300-square-foot urban public space that showcases how LID/GI techniques work with nature to manage rainwater as close to its source as possible, using a variety of measures to slow, filter, infiltrate, and evaporate the runoff in this low-lying area. Martin Luther King Jr. Square is artfully engineered to be a unique demonstration of an urban setting functioning in an environmentally responsible way, reducing nonpoint source pollution in the Lake Conway-Point Remove watershed and delivering ecosystem services such as air quality regulation, water regulation, water infiltration, erosion control, nutrient cycling, and recreation. LID/GI methods that were implemented include permeable hardscapes, vegetated living walls, bioswales, and rain gardens. The project also includes workshops, videos, and informational graphics to help educate the public about water quality.
Gantry Plaza State Park
Once a working waterfront teeming with barges, tugboats, and rail cars, the Hunter’s Point shoreline slowly succumbed to the realities of the Post-Industrial Age and this spectacular site was left to deteriorate. Thomas Balsley Associates, together with Weintraub di Domenico, envisioned Gantry Plaza State Park as a place that celebrates its past, future, skyli...
Honggang Park
Nestled between two hills in Shenzhen’s Luohu District, Honggang Park is a green corridor bringing over 80 acres of open space through the city’s dense fabric. Celebrating the site’s stark topography, SWA’s design carefully threads hiking trails along the slopes to minimize ecological disturbance, with stairs providing shortcuts along switchbacks. Altogether, ...
Katy Trail
Katy Trail represents a remarkable resource for the residents of the Dallas Fort Worth region. This project enlivens and makes accessible right-of-way established by the storied, but later abandoned, Missouri-Kansas-Texas (better known as the “Katy”) line, and serves as a unifying element for the surrounding neighborhoods. Katy Trail provides appro...
Dubai Expo 2020
From October 2021 to April 2022, the City of Dubai hosted the World Expo: a large-scale International Registered Exhibition that brings nations together with universal themes and immersive experiences. It comprises an entirely new city, built on a 1,083-acre site between Dubai and Abu Dhabi. The Expo site is organized around a central plaza linked to three mai...