After it was decided to locate the main concert venue on the building’s top floor to create a covered indoor/outdoor public realm, SWA designed the entire ground level of this venue for traditional Cantonese opera, including a dramatic, covered open-air landscape space. There, an urban stage facilitates movement, provides a gathering space, and enhances the visitor experience, while harmonizing with the architecture. The concept of “Qi” (flow) is expressed in materials, colors, forms, and textures united throughout. At three main entry areas on the ground floor, the façade was lifted to allow access. SWA worked on the grading and employed sloping planes with a grand curving stairway/ramp/amphitheater to connect them, also determining the levels for architectural space at the sides. The box office exists in the space below the landscape amphitheater seating. Groups of trees at each entry and in the central space bring the outdoors in. Outside, SWA designed paving for the first and second floors of the building as well as two outdoor gardens flanking the main performance hall on the 4th (top) floor. The bold upward move allowed space for a new entrance to the subway and the creation of an outdoor urban living room/garden stepped back from the heavily trafficked street. A parterre of planting and seating there provide separation as well as a dedicated entryway setting. An amphitheater with an outdoor performance area caps off this unique urban destination for the West Kowloon Cultural District.
Disney World Master Plan
Special issues in the computer-aided land analysis included depth to watertable, soils and organic mucks, and cypress groves. The analysis summary provided the basis for master planning a mixed-use community with extensive greenway conservation lands, resort development, entertainment facilities, a business park, and a residential community.
Nasu Highland
SWA collaborated with the architect to provide site planning, schematic landscape design and design development for this brand new membership clubhouse facility with an 18-hole golf course designed by Robert Trent Jones, Jr., International. The development includes a major arrival entry with a stone podium surrounded by a fountain pool. The clubhouse is surrou...
2010 Asian Games Village
SWA collaborated with the Guangzhou Urban Planning Design & Survey Institute on a new urban design concept for the 2010 Guangzhou Asian Games. Situated between mountains to the North and the Pearl River to the South, Guangzhou has a unique condition, which allows for the use of existing water channels for the framework of a new open space network. By abstr...
Paveletskaya Plaza
Situated along Moscow’s Ring Road and adjacent to the legendary Paveletsky Station transportation hub, the park at Paveletskaya Plaza will both cover and reveal the new bustling underground retail facility below while also serving as a landmark destination for residents and visitors alike.
The extraordinary retail and architectural vision for Paveletska...