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.
Gubei Gold Street
SWA was selected to conceptualize, design, and realize a rare find in bustling Shanghai—a pedestrian mall (Gold Street). The corridor occupies three city blocks, is flanked by 20-story high-rise residential towers with retail at street level and book-ended by SWA-designed parks. Creating an iconic presence and enlivening the area, the mall features plazas, fou...
Brentwood Town Centre
Following SWA’s development of a 2013 master plan for a new town center adjacent to the existing Brentwood Shopping Mall, the firm was enlisted to design the project’s public realm and expand its role as an integrated, sustainable, urban community. With key connectivity to main vehicular arteries and a high-speed train line, the new development functions as a ...
City Creek Center
In the heart of Salt Lake City, City Creek Center is the retail centerpiece of one of the nation’s largest mixed-use downtown redevelopment projects. This unique fashion and dining destination includes a new two-story retail center and over 500 residential rental units over four levels of underground parking, all within a downtown setting that features s...
Jianhua Mixed-Use Center
Located at the Western base of Baiyun Mountain, this mixed-use center captures the landmark peak’s influence on the site. In contrast to a modern architectural facade, the fluid and organic landscape suggests the erosion of the preexisting baserock by the adjacent creek. Stone is the main landscape material, and CNC technology is used to accomplish the organic...