For decades, Williams Square has been the walkable “living room” for Irving, Texas’s Las Colinas community. The plaza’s iconic bronze mustang sculptures, designed by artist Robert Glen, are among the state’s most iconic landscape features, speaking to the state’s identity and history.
SWA’s engagement with the plaza is longstanding, dating back to the 1980s. Initially, the plaza needed to take on a new life as a mixed-use environment. More recently, a growing number of live-work-play residents inspired a new role for Williams Square: one that retained its identity while promoting walkability and active transportation. The original redesign added green space and outdoor seating areas to encourage residents, visitors, and office workers to linger in an identifiably Texan landscape amid sleek new office buildings – recent efforts have reinforced these aspects.
With recent design updates, SWA has refurbished the plaza’s horse sculptures within their signature water feature, refreshing their patina and profile while maintaining the integrity of the original vision. A new overlook and additional shade features have been added to the site, making Williams Square a more fully activated destination that is linked to its surrounding district and continues to serve its ever-growing community. The site’s plantings remain native and local, with live oaks prominent, while the granite plaza and artfully eroded watercourse recall and celebrate the Texan landscape heritage.
Huamao Center
Huamao Center adds a major civic destination to the edge of Suzhou’s old town. Occupying 23.5 acres along the historic Shantang Canal, the project layers retail, office, and hospitality space into a human-scaled district rooted in the area’s history of water-based commerce, known for its classic Jiangnan water-town architectural style, with narrow lanes and st...
Gantry Plaza State Park
Once a working waterfront teeming with barges, tugboats, and rail cars, the Hunter’s Point shoreline slowly succumbed to the realities of the Post-Industrial Age and this spectacular site was left to deteriorate. Thomas Balsley Associates, together with Weintraub di Domenico, envisioned Gantry Plaza State Park as a place that celebrates its past, future, skyli...
Embankment Square
The Embankment Square is located along the east bank of the Huangpu River in Shanghai. The project consists of landscape areas in three office parcels and one waterfront park parcel. The view of the site is remarkable, looking toward the landmark skyscrapers of Lujiazui Financial Center, Nanpu Bridge, the Bund, and the Minsheng CBD.
The design concept c...
The Memorial at Harvey Milk Plaza
Harvey Milk Plaza is located in the heart of San Francisco’s Castro Neighborhood, and hosts one of the city’s busiest transit hubs. The plaza has been the site of countless gatherings and protests, including a candlelight vigil the night of Harvey’s untimely death and the White Night riots, which were sparked by the leniency of the sentence handed down to his ...