Shanghai EXPO’s Urban Best Practice Area surrounds the Plein Air Museum Park, which chronicles the unique and rich history of the site through objects of art, artifacts, and architecture. The landscape component of the museum park is expressed physically in the form of a Central Park: a gathering space and activity center for the community. The landscape was approached as a series of “fragments”: objects such as fountains, landforms, and sculptures as well as more defined spaces. In the Chengdu area, an entire garden was created, while elsewhere courtyards, bosques, and art installations predominate. Together, they form the central park and connect the Creative Innovation Center into one campus that is connected to the City, the surrounding community, and the river. SWA won an international competition for the project and provided full landscape architectural services.
Elk Grove Civic Center
SWA’s design for this community resource improves upon part of a 56-acre master plan with a civic center campus set within a beautiful park, and an added public outdoor commons. The pedestrian-friendly commons weaves new buildings together with mature trees and an outdoor living space linking together a community center, an aquatics center, and a future librar...
Park 101
The ambitious Park 101 aims to cover part of downtown Los Angeles’ 101 Freeway with a multi-purpose park that will include playgrounds, seating, festival areas, and a plaza. The approximately four-block cap park will reconnect the two sections of Downtown that have long been separated by the freeway, greatly enhancing the currently noisy, with much-needed shad...
Bend of the River Botanic Garden
The Bend of the River Botanic Garden Master Plan reimagines an 88-acre site in Temple, Texas, into a regional attraction. Situated at the intersection of I-35 and the Leon River, the site comprises two donated parcels, consolidated to serve Temple’s growing population of over 96,000.
SWA led a comprehensive public engagement process, facilitating conver...
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...