Santa Monica’s famous pier area draws visitors who often disregard pavement boundaries and compact the landscape soil. Palisades Park, adjacent to the iconic pier, is a particularly active site for cyclists and tourists that has long been in need of a planting strategy to discourage pedestrian overflow into the landscape. SWA’s defensive planting strategy tackles this perpetual headache for the City of Santa Monica. Three parcels of land are planted with agave, aloe, and other hardy, drought-tolerant species. The spikey shape of the plants discourages users from treading through the planting area, thereby alleviating the issue of compacting the soil. An existing ficus tree border frames the park, while fencing is strategically employed to keep users off of particularly sensitive areas.
Paveletskaya Plaza
Situated along Moscow’s Ring Road and adjacent to the legendary Paveletsky Station transportation hub, the park at Paveletskaya Plaza will both cover and reveal the new bustling underground retail facility below while also serving as a landmark destination for residents and visitors alike.
The extraordinary retail and architectural vision for Paveletska...
Tianjin Culture Park
In the strategy for the upcoming integration of Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei Province, the city of Tianjin has been identified as an advanced national manufacture and research base, as well as a core area of international shipping, a financial innovation demonstration zone, and a pilot region for the overall reformation of the area. The location of the SWA-desig...
Hermann Park
Hermann Park is one of Houston’s great civic resources containing a significant urban forest and many public venues. It is the flagship of the Houston Park system, serving the recreation needs of the City’s diverse population of some four million and welcoming over six million visitors a year. However, like many urban parks in America, much of Hermann Park has...
Portsmouth Square
Portsmouth Square is the heart of San Francisco’s Chinatown: the main civic park for all community festivals and events as well as an important day-to-day outdoor living room for the community. Centered in the densest community in the United States west of the Hudson River, the park plays a critical role in the health and well-being of the local residents, ove...