In recent years, mass timber has surged in popularity, combining the unique ability to sequester carbon in a building’s frame with exceptional structural and aesthetic value. For Google’s first mass timber building in Sunnyvale, SWA partnered with a multidisciplinary team to extend these principles into the surrounding landscape, creating a unified identity between architecture and environment that centers ecological stewardship.
Incorporating native coastal species like California live oak, sagebrush, and milkweed, the planting design enhances biodiversity, minimizes water use, and provides a refuge for people and pollinators around the building. Wooden site furnishings establish a cohesive material language on the ground plain, further complementing the building materials. Prioritizing connectivity, the site design features multimodal connections to the wider Sunnyvale transit system, encouraging low-carbon commuting for staff and visitors. Capturing the architecture’s warmth and biophilic qualities, SWA’s landscape is designed to create an interconnected experience for employees that blends the built and natural environment.
Collaborators:
XL Construction
Michael Green Architecture
SERA Architects
Equilibrium Engineering Solutions
Sares Regis Group
Kier+Wright
BOLD
RMA Irrigation
Akasaka K Tower
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 mid...
Westlake Corporate Campus
Westlake Corporate Campus is a new 107-acre corporate training facility and retreat center for Deloitte LLP. Formerly, Deloitte had conducted new employee training, team building and continuing education workshops at various hotel sites across the United States. The project encompasses indoor/outdoor classroom facilities, recreation and many other retreat type...
Poly International Plaza
Poly International Plaza is an innovative office, retail, and exhibition center development located in the Guangzhou trade district. Sited along the Pearl River and adjacent to historic Pazhou Temple Park, the project presents a precedent toward integrating development with its site and context, embracing the place of garden and sustainability in the society’s...
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...