Next C Water City is a new, fully self-contained sustainable city planned for 500,000 residents. Water was central to the Next C planning concept, supplied by two adjacent rivers and monsoon rains. The city is a system of wetlands, rivers, lakes, and canals, cleansing the water from up-river communities and managing floods during the monsoon season. Working with SOM’s urban design team, Thomas Balsley Associates strategized an open space plan that consisted of seven primary landscape typologies: Central Parks, Civic Squares, Urban Promenades, Water Edge Parks, Canal Parks, Neighborhood Parks, and Wetland Parks filtering and polishing poor quality water from the Chaobai River prior to discharging into the new city’s extensive waterways and eventually into the Yongding River. Each open space typology collectively provides green links throughout the city, and open space programming relates directly to adjacent land uses. Parks along waterways were designed with each season’s environmental extremes in mind, from dry to flooded, creating unique parks for every season.
Hunter's Point Shipyard and Candlestick Point
Perched on the edge of San Francisco Bay, the Hunters Point Shipyard was an important naval manufacturing center for the WWI and WWII war efforts. The abandoned shipyard and Candlestick Point were combined into a new, mixed-use residential, retail and light industry development—the largest in San Francisco since WWII. Thomas Balsley Associates collaborated wit...
Cross Creek Ranch
As urban areas expand, degraded lands robbed of natural resilience and biodiversity often lie in development’s path—presenting both challenges and opportunities. The Flewellen Creek Restoration project transforms a derelict 130-acre ranching ditch into a vibrant 3-mile ecosystem, anchoring the new 3,200-acre Cross Creek Ranch community.
Rooted in ...
Shady Canyon
Shady Canyon is a 1,070-acre residential community and land preservation project in the heart of bustling, master-planned Orange County. The project carefully integrates the natural environment into every aspect of the community which consists of 400 custom and builder homes, a golf course that preserves important biological resources, swim center, recreation ...
Hensley Field Master Plan
Building upon a winning competition entry, SWA is developing a master plan to transform a former Naval Air Station into a premier mixed-use district in southern Dallas. Tasked with crafting an implementable plan that achieves environmental sustainability, economic recovery, and social equity objectives, SWA is working to address the unique challenges of a form...