“The vision for Martin Luther King Jr. Square leverages site design to demonstrate a different future for storm water management in Conway. The park will transform a brownfield site plagued by flooding into a lively storm water park and cultural asset for the city.”
– City of Conway, Arkansas
The City of Conway received local and federal grants to create a water quality demonstration park in a flood-prone, one-block area of its downtown to educate the public about Low Impact Development (LID) and Green Infrastructure (GI) methods and how they can enhance water quality. The project transformed a remediated brownfield site, subject to seasonal flooding, into a 300-square-foot urban public space that showcases how LID/GI techniques work with nature to manage rainwater as close to its source as possible, using a variety of measures to slow, filter, infiltrate, and evaporate the runoff in this low-lying area. Martin Luther King Jr. Square is artfully engineered to be a unique demonstration of an urban setting functioning in an environmentally responsible way, reducing nonpoint source pollution in the Lake Conway-Point Remove watershed and delivering ecosystem services such as air quality regulation, water regulation, water infiltration, erosion control, nutrient cycling, and recreation. LID/GI methods that were implemented include permeable hardscapes, vegetated living walls, bioswales, and rain gardens. The project also includes workshops, videos, and informational graphics to help educate the public about water quality.
Bensonhurst Park
Bensonhurst Park is part of the larger Shore Parkway, an 816.1-acre collection of parks that stretches across Brooklyn and Queens. Today, the site provides a series of pathways, passive seating areas, recreational fields and a playground.
SWA/Balsley created a master plan for the redesign of the north end of the park and final design and construction doc...
Eucalyptus Society Garden
SWA’s design for this park, with its collegiate social atmosphere, offers a memorable place of natural respite that functions as green infrastructure.
Eucalyptus Society Garden project is located at the intersection of three science and innovation corridor axes in Guangzhou International Innovation City, including the core axis of the University City. B...
Nickerson Gardens Playground
Originally designed in 1955 by architect Paul Revere Williams, Nickerson Gardens is a 1,066-unit apartment complex in Watts, South Los Angeles — the largest social housing project west of the Mississippi. Core to Williams’ vision was an emphasis on shared open space, but its central playground, neglected for years, fell into a state of disrepair. In collaborat...
Riverside Park South
Located on the West Side of Manhattan on the scenic Hudson River shoreline, Riverside Park South is a massive, multiphase project of sweeping ambition and historic scope. Combining new green space, new infrastructure, and the renovation of landmark industrial buildings, the plan – originally devised by Thomas Balsley Associates in 1991 – is an extension of Fre...