Preserving history while innovating across typologies and expanding geographies

Established in the early 1960s, SWA Sausalito is the firm’s original and oldest continually operating studio. The birthplace of the “large landscape architecture firm,” SWA Sausalito has a highly diversified portfolio both in its program types and locations, with a significant number of public space and planning projects across Northern California, as well as in China, Japan, and the Middle East.

Selected Projects

A stone’s throw away from the water in the bayside arts-oriented city, the Sausalito studio occupies the original site where the Marinship Company built WWII ships in the 1940s. Sliding glass doors open the office to the east and west. Staff maintain the West Garden, a plot with over 40 species, and a garden wall that exhibits various materials from SWA’s current and past projects. The East Yard offers a deck for staff to enjoy lunch or an extension space for weekly Hooch happy hours.

The studio, led by Managing Principal Shuntaro Yahiro, is home to SWA’s Accounting, IT, HR, and Imaging teams.