This urban redevelopment project is on the site of the former headquarters of Kajima Construction Corporation. Mid-rise twin towers were replaced with 150-meter-tall high-rise with office space and high-end apartments on the upper floors. SWA designed an entry plaza for the building, while providing much-needed green space in this dense neighborhood in the middle of metropolitan Tokyo. The concept is that the new building grows out of a land filled with trees. Within this refuge there are several different spaces offering intimate gathering areas with seating. Gracing a formal entry plaza is a highly articulated terra-cotta archway, “Beyond the Horizon,” by artist Takenobu Igarashi, with whom SWA collaborated. Before it sits a swirling, grade-level water feature also meant for contemplation and to aid in transporting urban dwellers from their everyday chaos. In contrast to the intimate spaces, the plaza is an open and very public space. The water feature is a focal point of the plaza, creating soothing sounds, while reducing traffic noise from a busy four-lane throughway.
The Landing
A new life sciences campus in Burlingame, California, The Landing’s landscape design centers on accessibility, ecological function, and experience, creating a welcoming and high-quality public realm within a high-performance biotech environment. Shaded seating areas, native and climate-responsive planting, and open-air gathering spaces offer everyday val...
Tencent Shenzhen Headquarters
Spanning nearly two million square meters on a peninsula sheltering Shenzhen’s Qianhai Bay, Tencent’s new headquarters serves as the domestic anchor for the tech giant’s global operations in China. Once completed, it will be one of the largest tech campuses in the world, roughly the size of Manhattan.
The campus is entirely car-free. Designed by an inte...
San Antonio Station
San Antonio Station is a landscape and architectural retrofit project that transforms an introverted site into an open, connected, and flexible campus landscape. Originally Mayfield Mall, California’s first enclosed shopping mall, the reinvigorated site is named after its proximity to a Caltrain station. The property boasts 500,000 sf of ready-built offi...
Elco Yards
Elco Yards recasts a series of car dealerships and surface parking as a compact and walkable mixed-use district that extends Redwood City’s downtown. With architecture by WRNS Studio and landscape by SWA, the new five-block neighborhood features four office and life science buildings with ground-floor retail and two residential buildings. The public realm orga...