SWA was retained to design the landscape of this mixed-use development collaboratively with Zaha Hadid Architects. It contains performing arts, hotel, residential, office and retail functions. Located adjacent to SWA’s Nanjing Youth Olympic Park, the design strives to merge architecture, the park landscape, and people at this iconic focal point. Landforms and landscape act as extensions of the buildings into the park landscape while providing a simple canvas for the dramatic architecture. The performing arts function spills outdoors into a small amphitheater overlooking a sunken retail courtyard. Lighting creates vibrancy in order to reinforce the Youth Cultural Centre as a public destination at night. Sustainable efforts included material re-use, water harvesting, and water quality and stormwater management initiatives. The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat honored this complex with three design awards in 2018.
St. Louis Ballpark Village District Landscape Master Plan
Downtown St. Louis is currently undergoing an urban renaissance: seeking to enrich experience of place and to attract a growing population of urban residents, employeers, and tourists. SWA/Balsley was engaged for district-wide landscape services for a new urban redevelopment, Ball Park Village, located directly across the street from Busch Stadium, home of the...
Disney World Master Plan
Special issues in the computer-aided land analysis included depth to watertable, soils and organic mucks, and cypress groves. The analysis summary provided the basis for master planning a mixed-use community with extensive greenway conservation lands, resort development, entertainment facilities, a business park, and a residential community.
Changsha Baxizhou Island
Over many decades, public agencies in China have sought to solve growing flooding issues in a defensive way: fortifying and hardening river edges, raising levee heights, and ultimately separating the people from historical connections to the water. With an understanding of river flow processes and volumes and of wetland and native forest ecology, this separati...
Texas Rangers Globe Life Field
The landscape experience around this stadium features detailed plazas at all main entry points that celebrate the rich history of the Texas Rangers. Rangers Plaza is the main attraction, especially on game days, hosting a multitude of different programmatic functions that are associated with both the Texas Rangers and the surrounding Arlington community. The s...