Inspired by the idea of movement, this collaboration with Studios Architecture achieves an artful harmony of building with landscape, program with site. The image of a dancer in grand jete kindled the designers’ imaginations and served as the project’s organizing idea. Asia’s first professional dance complex is tucked between a freeway, a subway station and a park at a prominent edge of Shanghai. The project’s scheme integrates historic buildings, and provides an appropriate separation of public and performance spaces from private living and educational spaces as well as a functional and ceremonial arrival and drop-off area. At the large central plaza, a dramatic interactive fountain welcomes visitors and creates a sense of drama for public performances. The feature may be shut off to create outdoor space for larger public gatherings. The plaza provides access to the Center’s four new buildings, each with its own distinctive outdoor courtyard. Courtyards are carved into the landscape, with the new spaces offering a variety of experiences for learning and performance. In this new amenity for the public, curving bands of paving, along with rows of trees, hedges and promenades sweep through the landscape, where seating and water features welcome visitors from the surrounding city.
Montclair State University Student Center and Quad
SWA/Balsley collaborated with DIG Architects and Montclair State University to reimagine the campus student center, adjacent quad, and connections to the surrounding campus. Through site analysis and project stakeholder meetings, key pedestrian and vehicular circulation routes were identified for resident students, daily commuters, and University staff. The st...
University of Houston Law Center
The University of Houston Law Center, established in 1947, has earned national recognition, with three of its programs ranked in the top 10 by U.S. News and World Report. Despite these academic accolades, the original Law Center building faced significant challenges due to its location and design. Situated in Houston’s low-lying coastal prairie ecoregion...
Stanford Hoover Institution Traitel Building
The Hoover Institution at Stanford University is a public policy research organization promoting principles of individual, economic, and political freedom. CAW and SWA collaborated as a design team to create a building and site that helped promote research collaboration through open site connections and workspace.
SWA focused on a site design that exten...
Stanford West Apartments
SWA placed a special emphasis on maintaining the riparian corridor with native planting, using consideration when dealing with the archaeologically sensitive areas of the site, as well as existing recreation trails and landscape amenities such as parks and play areas. The internal street grid and architectural and landscape elements are designed to recall the ...