After nearly 15 years of being closed to the public, Bicentennial Park will soon provide a lively setting for neighborhood recreation. The City of Hawthorne has been home to many creative people throughout history: a legendary athlete and Olympian, Jim Thorpe; a world-famous movie star, Marilyn Monroe; and one of the most beloved American rock bands, The Beach Boys. The City is also at the center of the United States aerospace industry, home to Northrop Grumman and SpaceX. Hawthorne High School provides outstanding programs in engineering and manufacturing, promising a future generation of leading scientists. Yet today, more than 20 percent of the total population of Hawthorne lives below the poverty line and the community is victim to some of the worst environmental conditions in Southern California. In collaboration with The Trust for Public Land, the local community has worked for many years to redevelop the little-used and neglected Bicentennial Park property into a safe, welcoming recreational resource for city residents. Working closely with project stakeholders, SWA designers have developed a design for the park renovation inspired by Hawthorne s history and heritage. Focusing on the playground as a main feature of the park, SWA proposed the concept “Where Creative Minds Grow.” The park’s design concept features the history of aviation as a playful element, exposing generations young and old to the community’s unique history.
Buffalo Bend Park
Houston’s East End is a bifurcated community, with heavy industry brushing up against a vibrant and culturally diverse residential area. Answering residents’ call for more park space, SWA created Buffalo Bayou Bend Nature Park by converting a formerly neglected industrial site into a wetland ecosystem and public green space.
Three interconnected ponds, ...
Ricardo Lara Park
Ricardo Lara Park is a vibrant city park and a case study in landscape infrastructure. It demonstrates how a small investment and creative thinking about landscape can transform the very infrastructure that has long divided and isolated a community into an amenity that unites it, offering much-needed environmental and recreational benefits.
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Resonant Memory: One October Memorial
Inspired by the shared love of country music that brought people from all over the world together for the Route 91 Music Festival, Resonant Memory is based on the shape of an acoustic guitar. The design makes particular use of the instrument’s sound hole as a recurring motif to represent absence, honoring the lives lost on October 1, 2017, in Las Vegas, Nevada...
Polliwog Park
Originally built in the 1970s, Polliwog Park is a high-use neighborhood amenity that provides active recreation and play facilities to local families. The original playground was replaced in 2003 but required a full update in 2020 to account for routine flooding. SWA’s design allows the park to remain an active community feature year-round.
In addition ...