While residents and businesses are clearly proud of the City of Thousand Oaks’ two-decade-long “Tree City USA” designation, recent drought conditions created an urgent need for the City to decrease grassy landscapes and update maintenance practices. As a key part of these efforts, the City selected SWA, along with team partners Planning & Energy/Entitlement Services and Rincon, to update its 26-year-old Forestry Master Plan. The process involved community engagement, including the development of a comprehensive outreach booklet; City staff meetings; and research and analysis to develop plant palettes, planting guidelines, and maintenance recommendations that will help the City sustainably manage their community forest.
Through online surveys and community workshops, the team solicited residents’ input on the future of Thousand Oaks’ landscape character. SWA facilitated discussions about how to adapt, but also preserve, the city’s landscape identity. Elements include drought-tolerant species, increased habitat for butterfly/pollinator species, solar irrigation clocks, and a one-shrub-to-one-bubbler ratio to ease maintenance.
The updated Forestry Master Plan provides the City with a framework for selecting the right tree for the right place; incorporating more drought-tolerant and California native planting materials in public rights-of-way; and increasing the community forest’s resilience during times of drought and climate change.
Milton Street Park
Milton Street Park is a 1.2-acre linear urban park alongside the Ballona Creek Bike Trail in Los Angeles, California. The plan incorporates numerous green-design elements, including the use of recycled materials, native planting, flow-through planters and treatment alongside the 1,000-foot-long, 45-foot-wide stretch of land. A variety of special elements such...
Greening Houston’s Freeways
As Houston’s Downtown has developed and expanded over many decades, public green space has been increasingly constrained by several interstate routes: primarily I-59, -45, and -69. These thoroughfares, while essential for commuters, have left little room for workers and nearby residents to enjoy unimpeded access to their locale’s adjacent trailways and bayous,...
Ricardo Lara Park
Ricardo Lara Park is a vibrant city park and a case study in landscape infrastructure. It demonstrates how a small investment and creative thinking about landscape can transform the very infrastructure that has long divided and isolated a community into an amenity that unites it, offering much-needed environmental and recreational benefits.
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Tianjin Eco-City
The vision for Tianjin Eco-City is of a socially harmonious, environmentally friendly, and resource-efficient model for sustainable development. The new city encompasses two flagship civic projects: the National Maritime Museum and the surrounding South Bay Park. South Bay Park is the project’s central green infrastructure, but also provides a significant outd...