Poly Zhuhai, a large mixed-use development, is located at the central axis of Hengqin Island, a transformed landfill site near Macao. The site is south of the small Hengqin Mountain, facing a civic sports park on the other side.
The main office tower has a large, square footprint, elevated six to seven meters above the street level, with retail programs and two sunken plazas on the ground level along B1 parking access. The design’s essence is a sense of hills rolling down to re-engage with the city, scaling the large tower to its context with organic landform “fingers” stretching out from the mountain. To disguise the main plaza’s multiple utility vents, similar landforms serve large green roof pavilions that also provide much-needed shelter as well as extra retail spaces to invigorate the large plaza.
A wide, porous land bridge connects to the mountain park over a major arterial road. The park-like plaza is filled with diverse spaces and programs awaiting exploration.
Guangzhou Vanke Center
Guangzhou Vanke Center incorporates commercial, and office uses in an urban setting. To echo the “cascading” concept of the architectural design, the landscape architecture was inspired by the fluidity of water, as well as the unique local cultural heritage of dragon boats. The design provides for different types of social activity with variously scaled spaces...
Williams Square
For decades, Williams Square has been the walkable “living room” for Irving, Texas’s Las Colinas community. The plaza’s iconic bronze mustang sculptures, designed by artist Robert Glen, are among the state’s most iconic landscape features, speaking to the state’s identity and history.
SWA’s engagement with the plaza is longstanding, dating back to the 1...
MKT Mixed-Use Development
The MKT mixed-use development is a truly Houstonian take on adaptive reuse, with a tilt wall industrial office park. Located in the chic and rapidly upscaling neighborhood of Houston Heights, this industrial, 1970s-era industrial remnant is being transformed: the buildings’ concrete shells remain, but are bisected by pathways that seem to surgically remove the...
RIT Global Village and Global Plaza
Global Village, a pedestrian-only infill neighborhood adjacent to Rochester Institute of Technology’s academic core, and its mixed-use centerpiece, Global Plaza, create a social heart for 17,200 students and 3,600 faculty and staff. The landscape architects and architects collaborated on an urban design that establishes multiple “crossroads” ...