The Shenzhen Longgang River Blueway System is envisioned to unlock the tremendous land value of this 13-mile-long suburban watershed and galvanize the city’s future growth. SWA’s proposal addresses urbanization issues pertaining to water, the environment, and open space shortage, while also activating industrial and cultural revitalization in the surrounding district. The design builds riverside ecological corridors at a regional scale while guaranteeing water quality and quantity; by incorporating pockets of native planting and habitat that extend deep into the adjacent urban areas via rain gardens and bioswales, streets move water as well as people and vehicles. Striking murals line the riverside walls and punctuate urban villages and new developments, conveying the history of Longgang and the Hakka people who inhabited these lands centuries ago.
Residents and visitors are offered a rich variety of outdoor pursuits: art, craft, and food markets; music events, and fascinating evening light shows. Unique developments engage the river as a new recreational resource. Sporting opportunities for young adults, adventure play for children and families, and birdwatching for seniors define the new open spaces along the river.
North Bund Riverside
North Bund Riverside Park, located on a prominent 2.1 km waterfront along Shanghai’s Huangpu River, is the first project of its kind in Shanghai to address contiguous waterfront open space. The goal of the associated international competition was to find innovative solutions to transform a post-industrial waterfront with historic elements into a viable active ...
Houston Green Loop
With the coming expansion and realignment of the highways around Downtown Houston, SWA identified the opportunity to enact a bold vision: a multi-use branded connectivity system that will leverage the immense reconstruction investment. SWA’s concept creates a continuous pedestrian loop over, under, and around the downtown highway system, thus redirecting the u...
Xingfa Quarry Park
Just north of Beijing, between the Great Wall and Yanqi Lake, the Xingfa Cement Plant once fueled China’s construction boom, operating for over two decades before its 2015 closure under the National Air Quality Action Plan. Today, an adjacent quarry that once provided raw materials has been remediated as a 107.5-hectare terraced park that anchors an accompanyi...
Katy Trail
Katy Trail represents a remarkable resource for the residents of the Dallas Fort Worth region. This project enlivens and makes accessible right-of-way established by the storied, but later abandoned, Missouri-Kansas-Texas (better known as the “Katy”) line, and serves as a unifying element for the surrounding neighborhoods. Katy Trail provides appro...