Northwest Vista College is situated in the oak covered hills west of San Antonio, with beautiful views toward the city and surrounding valley. Previously the design team completed an extensive master plan that accommodated for the expansion of the college facilities to three times its current size. The design seeks to sensitively integrate the nearly 400,000 square feet of new buildings and associated roads and parking into the pristine oak covered hills that surround the campus. Careful grading and alignments of proposed infrastructure elements allows for the preservation of existing trees throughout the campus. Additional landscaping applies native plantings with minimal irrigation outside of the primary pedestrian gathering spaces. The heart of the campus incorporates a 2.5 acre lake situated in a natural ravine. The lake serves to visually connect the two sides of the campus while also providing for storm water detention requirements. Bio-filtration and stillen basins help to capture sediments and pollutants before releasing storm water flows into the natural drainage channels that exit the site to the south. The east side of the campus is formed by a series of new buildings terraced up a gentle hillside and arranged around a sloped quadrangle. A new fine arts center will anchor the upper portion of the quad, and serve as the architectural centerpiece of the campus as viewed from the lake below and surrounding community.
CyFair College
The CyFair College Campus is a model for environmentally responsible development and restoration of a sensitive ecosystem. Located on the suburban fringe of northwest Houston, it is surrounded by the Katy Prairie, an endangered ecosystem of coastal prairie grass meadows marked by groves of trees and connected to a system of wetlands, bayous, and ponds.
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Universidad de Monterrey Campus Master Plan
The project focuses on improving the sustainability of the 247-acre campus, designing a shift from a vehicular orientation to one that encourages pedestrian, bicycle, and transit use. Site design strategies employ indigenous plant materials and natural water retention and filtration for low-maintenance landscaping. Phase 1 includes site design for one of Latin...
Stanford Center for Advanced Study in Behavioral Sciences
Sitting atop a hill above Stanford University’s campus, the Center for Advanced Study in Behavioral Sciences (CASBS) has long been a destination for groundbreaking thinkers, with 30 Nobel Prize winners, 25 Pulitzer Prize winners, 52 MacArthur Fellows, and 176 members of the National Academy of Sciences among the esteemed class of Fellows. Situated between the ...
Stanford University Campus Planning and Projects
Over the past 20 plus years SWA has been working with Stanford University to reclaim the 100 year old master plan vision of Leland Stanford and Frederick Law Olmsted for the campus. This series of campus improvement projects has restored the historic axis, open spaces and landscape patterns. With Stanford Management Company, SWA designed the Sand Hill corridor...