SWA was tasked with creating a neighborhood gathering space and exterior dining hall that is an exercise in contradictions — open and welcoming, while able to be walled off. By blending urban planning, landscape architecture, interior design, and architecture with an understanding of retail real estate, the team was able to quickly establish development yields and comprehensive visions for the site. This method can help clients establish land value and facilitate real estate transactions, as occurred in this instance after an intensive retail placemaking workshop. Taking plans a step further, SWA created a comprehensive vision for the landscape that was used by developers to help gain the support of residents and businesses.
To embrace the neighborhood’s signifiers without using symbols, the answer was art: in the forms of security, cultural identity features, and welcoming gathering spaces. In addition to custom fencing depicting the native plants and weeds that existed across the site pre-development, the act of opening the gates is a play on lifting back the weeds that represent the neglect this underserved neighborhood once experienced. Despite a series of construction challenges, the result is a vibrant outdoor space rooted in the local Long Beach community’s cultural character.
Rodeo 39
As larger big-box companies continue to close their brick-and-mortar stores, each leaves behind a sizable void within the communities these centers once served. Rodeo 39, seeks to break the models of traditional retail that are founded on convenience and visibility and shift the focus to community aspirations and user experience.
The 31,000-square-foot ...
Santana Row
SWA provided full landscape architectural services for the development of a neo-traditional town center near downtown San Jose. The client’s vision called for a variety of design styles to create a town center with an impression of growth over time. This theme is expressed in building elevations as well as landscape design. The restaurants and boutique r...
Poly Pazhou Mixed-Use
The iconic architecture and riverside context that characterize Poly Pazhou were inspirations in this SWA/SOM collaboration, which also took adjoining development in the burgeoning region into account. Broad, sweeping landscape, featuring diverse local plant species, embraces both the soaring buildings and the Pearl River corridor, extending its spatial charac...
RIT Global Village and Global Plaza
Global Village, a pedestrian-only infill neighborhood adjacent to Rochester Institute of Technology’s academic core, and its mixed-use centerpiece, Global Plaza, create a social heart for 17,200 students and 3,600 faculty and staff. The landscape architects and architects collaborated on an urban design that establishes multiple “crossroads” ...