Located next to a reclaimed quarry park, Xingfa Cement Plant is a former factory transformed into a national advanced science research facility, contributing to the establishment of Huairou Science City. The team of landscape architects and architects worked in close collaboration to preserve valuable cement factory buildings, production structures, existing trees, and dramatic site landforms, and studied local precipitation patterns to absorb drainage and protect the site from heavy summer storms. Proposed programs and buildings were considered under local cultural protection restrictions due to their adjacency to the Great Wall across the valley.
Science and research development history resonates throughout the site, unifying this dynamic research campus with cement production and transportation logic represented by the existing railway system and proposed landscape path. Various factory elements were reused at various scales as signage, furniture, walls, paving, and other decorations. A variety of landscape moments and atmospheres are proposed based on their specific contexts, carefully blended with the architectural color system and negotiated within complex hillside conditions.
Symantec Chengdu
SWA provided landscape design for Symantec’s research and development complex. The site was previously inactive and banal until SWA’s design reinvigorated the area, linking the building program and connecting the site to the larger city. The landscape design produces a “brocade,” weaving together the building and site program, and offering an oasis amid the de...
Poly Future City
As the first phase of a large development along a new subway line in Beijing, Poly Future City suggests what’s to come. A sleek sales center features an interactive landscape with water features punctuating its pavilions, which boast WiFi, heated seating, and power outlets, all solar-powered. For this temporary building and landscape, SWA took care to invest i...
Alipay Headquarters
The new the Hangzhou Alipay Headquarters is located between the Xi Xi wetlands and downtown Hangzhou, a city renowned for its rich culture and beautiful landscapes. Hills and small mountains surround the headquarters building in three directions, and in the fourth lies downtown Hangzhou. Three landscape “movements” derived from openings in the building direct ...
Lite-On Headquarters
This major Taiwanese electronics company chose Taipei’s “Electronics Center” overlooking the Gee Long River for their new headquarters. The overall concept is of a 25-story slender tower rising above a sloped landscape podium that covers much of the site. Below-grade parking slopes toward the river on one side, with the urban center on the ot...