“[Riverside Park South] is a massive, multi-phase project of sweeping ambition and historic scope. Combining new greenspace, new infrastructure, and the renovation of landmark industrial buildings, the ….bold scheme calls for the elevated Miller Highway, long a barrier between the city and its waterfront, to be dropped to grade and covered with a park, affording unimpeded access from upland neighborhoods to their riverfront.
– Damian Holmes, World Landscape Architect
Located on the West Side of Manhattan on the scenic Hudson River shoreline, Riverside Park South is a massive, multiphase project of sweeping ambition and historic scope. Combining new green space, new infrastructure, and the renovation of landmark industrial buildings, the plan – originally devised by Thomas Balsley Associates in 1991 – is an extension of Frederick Law Olmsted’s famed Riverside Park, carrying it a further 13 blocks beyond its traditional southern boundary. At the same time, the scheme calls for the elevated Miller Highway (long a barrier between the city and its waterfront) to be replaced by an underground tunnel topped by lawns and surface streets, affording unimpeded access from new high-rise apartment buildings and upland neighborhoods to the parks and paths along the river.
Main Street Garden Park
A key component in the downtown revitalization strategy, Main Street Garden Park required razing two city blocks of buildings and garages to make way for its transformation into a vibrant public space teeming with civic life. This two-acre park fosters downtown residential and commercial growth and was designed to accommodate the needs of residents in adjacent...
Guiyang Hot Springs
Guiyang Hot Springs, located in Guiyang City, China, brings together the rhythm of the Nanming River, and surrounding trails and trees to create a new urban ‘living room’ in the interstitial space created by new development and roadway infrastructure. Nestled into a mountainous site, the master planning addressed elevation changes of up to 100 meters and the e...
Rio 2016 Olympic Park Competition
SWA was awarded 2nd place in the 2016 Olympic Park Competition in Rio de Janeiro for their master plan and landscape architecture proposal. The Olympics will be located on a 118-hectare site in the neighborhood of Barra da Tijuca. The underlying concept of ‘Embrace’ weaves through the design in a grand planning gesture, which both defines the Olympic Games and...
Hunter's Point South Waterfront Park
Hunter’s Point South Waterfront Park was envisioned as an international model of urban ecology and a world laboratory for innovative sustainable thinking. The project is a collaboration between Thomas Balsley Associates and WEISS/MANFREDI for the open space and park design with ARUP as the prime consultant and infrastructure designer.
What was once a ba...