Portsmouth Square is the heart of San Francisco’s Chinatown: the main civic park for all community festivals and events as well as an important day-to-day outdoor living room for the community. Centered in the densest community in the United States west of the Hudson River, the park plays a critical role in the health and well-being of the local residents, over 40 percent of whom live in single-occupancy units.
Since being established as Yerba Buena’s first public space in 1833, Portsmouth Square has undergone many iterations, culminating with the building of an underground parking garage with an RHAA-designed park on top in the 1970s. SWA led a year-long, community-participatory planning process to envision this park for the next generation structured around five large public workshops, working with approximately 20 community groups and 30 key stakeholders, and coordination with six city agencies. The design takes into account stormwater design, solar power, high albedo surfaces, urban forestry, all over an existing structure.
Hennepin Avenue
Hennepin Avenue is the oldest street in Downtown Minneapolis, and has gone through multiple transformations over time. The street is undergoing a major reconstruction, and SWA is leading the effort to enhance the character of Hennepin for years to come. The conceptual approach was developed through a robust public engagement process, and touches on the three m...
Homecrest Playground
Part of the larger Shore Parkway, an 816.1-acre collection of parks that stretches across Brooklyn and Queens, Homecrest Playground originally opened in 1942 with a baseball field, basketball courts, handball courts, and benches for community use. This park redesign focuses on providing different playground and recreation amenities for surrounding residents. Metcalfe Park, a resilient community in north Milwaukee, has long grappled with challenges tied to structural racism, disinvestment, and environmental injustice. Milwaukee Recreation is working to change the city’s public spaces through an effort to revitalize all 52 of its playfields, and Metcalfe Playfield is the 15th completed renovation. The park was selec... Along the Pearl River, this stretch of Guangzhou’s industrial belt produced steel for nearly seven decades. Following the factory’s decommissioning in 2013, the site has been transformed into a carbon-negative landscape that weaves its industrial past into every design decision. Guangzhou Steel Park reshapes a legacy of environmental degradation into a m...Metcalfe Playfield
Guangzhou Steel Park