Dubai Creek Harbor is a progressive and innovative new neighborhood that aims to respond to environmental concerns with professional, best-practice measures that will ensure an environment that is healthy, accessible, and environmentally responsible.
The storied history, culture, and nature of Dubai Creek serves as the inspiration for the design of Dubai’s newest public realm. Dubai’s relationship to the water is an essential part of its history. For over 7,000 years, the earliest civilizations within the region have enriched their lives via pearl harvesting, which brought personal wealth, regional prosperity, and an intimate connection to the sea that is still prominent in Emirati culture. Although pearl harvesting as an industry is almost obsolete today, the pearl and its shell enclosure serve as the design basis for the modern metropolis we know today. The design, material selection, and construction approach for the harbor have been inspired by key features of the shell, such as its texture, luminosity, shape, and haptic qualities. References to the qualities and nature of the shell are interwoven throughout the visitor and residential experience. Strategies aim to increase site vegetation, dark-sky compliance lighting, and employ light-colored materials and native planting palettes, all which contribute to a greener development.
Changsha Baxizhou Island
Over many decades, public agencies in China have sought to solve growing flooding issues in a defensive way: fortifying and hardening river edges, raising levee heights, and ultimately separating the people from historical connections to the water. With an understanding of river flow processes and volumes and of wetland and native forest ecology, this separati...
Shunde Guipan River Waterfront
SWA participated in a competition reimagining 19-kilometers of the Guipan River waterfront in Shunde, China. While the Pearl River Delta is one of the fastest growing regions of Southern China, one of the many casualties of this growth was the delta itself. Presently, Shunde has a growing flooding problem enhanced by channelizing, condensing, and containing th...
Golden Shoal Riverfront Park
Located along Chongqing’s Jialing River, this new linear public park offered unique challenges: a 30-meter annual river fluctuation, steep topography, and low-impact maintenance of a continuous riparian corridor. Adjacent new urban development, with attendant needs for green space, called for a flexible and resilient approach to the park’s landscape and infras...
Wusong Riverfront
Kunshan, China, located near Shanghai, has experienced unprecedented population and business growth in recent years which has resulted in environmental degradation and the need for the city to reshape its identity. SWA’s proposal aims to create a new waterfront district providing businesses as well as residents with public amenities and viable open space. The ...