In recent years, mass timber has surged in popularity, combining the unique ability to sequester carbon in a building’s frame with exceptional structural and aesthetic value. For Google’s first mass timber building in Sunnyvale, SWA partnered with a multidisciplinary team to extend these principles into the surrounding landscape, creating a unified identity between architecture and environment that centers ecological stewardship.
Incorporating native coastal species like California live oak, sagebrush, and milkweed, the planting design enhances biodiversity, minimizes water use, and provides a refuge for people and pollinators around the building. Wooden site furnishings establish a cohesive material language on the ground plain, further complementing the building materials. Prioritizing connectivity, the site design features multimodal connections to the wider Sunnyvale transit system, encouraging low-carbon commuting for staff and visitors. Capturing the architecture’s warmth and biophilic qualities, SWA’s landscape is designed to create an interconnected experience for employees that blends the built and natural environment.
Collaborators:
XL Construction
Michael Green Architecture
SERA Architects
Equilibrium Engineering Solutions
Sares Regis Group
Kier+Wright
BOLD
RMA Irrigation
East Evelyn Avenue
301-381 East Evelyn Avenue is home to a uniquely preserved architectural example of 1980s office park design. The aim of this project is to retrofit this suburban office campus into a diverse, connected, and urban environment. SWA approached the site from the same perspective as that taken for successful urban neighborhoods. A hierarchy of outdoor realms organ...
DNP Office Towers
SWA provided landscape architectural services for a new office tower including the arrival plaza, west and north gardens and upper on-structure view terraces at the 8th and 9th floors. The goal of the design was to broaden and strengthen a designated green spine through an urban redevelopment zone and to create a landscape-dominated environment in a dense urba...
Lite-On Headquarters
This major Taiwanese electronics company chose Taipei’s “Electronics Center” overlooking the Gee Long River for their new headquarters. The overall concept is of a 25-story slender tower rising above a sloped landscape podium that covers much of the site. Below-grade parking slopes toward the river on one side, with the urban center on the ot...
Westlake Corporate Campus
Westlake Corporate Campus is a 107-acre corporate training facility and retreat center for Deloitte LLP. Formerly, Deloitte had conducted new employee training, team building, and continuing education workshops at various hotel sites across the United States. The project encompasses indoor/outdoor classroom facilities, recreation, and many other retreat-type a...