United Daily News Plaza is located on one of the busiest streets of Taipei – Chong Shao East Road. It is a 6,000-square-meter mixed-use project with two building sites. Site A consists of a mixed-use building with a bank and cafe on the first floor, and service apartments on all the floors above. Site B is a residential building. The main design concept creates an urban forest, unifying the two sites to give a distinctive image within an extremely busy urban context. The “forest” is created with newly planted street trees at the perimeter of the site, especially as an allee along Chong Shao East Road. To ensure the trees grow to a sufficient size, SWA worked with the architect to reserve 1.5 meter soil depth on top of the parking structure. Permeable paving, a subsurface drainage system were are also introduced to optimize growth. Densely planted cherry trees in the reading garden further impart the feeling of being surrounded by forest; chinaberry trees interspersed in the main plaza provide shade in the summer and a change of character throughout the seasons.
Since the owner is one of the earliest newspaper groups in Taiwan, the landscape design is also inspired by the traditional printing press system. The traditional Chinese printing press consist of square blocks, this inspiration has been transformed into a modular layout of the site, and also carried through in the understory planting palette, mist fountain, and bench design.
OCT Bay
Located in Shenzhen, OCT Bay has a combined site area of approximately 1.25 square kilometers including equal parts new urban center and nature preserve. SWA provided both master planning and landscape architectural services for the entire site. As a new urban cultural and entertainment destination, OCT Bay provides urban amenities, entertainment components, p...
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...
Embankment Square
The Embankment Square is located along the east bank of the Huangpu River in Shanghai. The project consists of landscape areas in three office parcels and one waterfront park parcel. The view of the site is remarkable, looking toward the landmark skyscrapers of Lujiazui Financial Center, Nanpu Bridge, the Bund, and the Minsheng CBD.
The design concept c...
Huamao Center
Huamao Center adds a major civic destination to the edge of Suzhou’s old town. Occupying 23.5 acres along the historic Shantang Canal, the project layers retail, office, and hospitality space into a human-scaled district rooted in the area’s history of water-based commerce, known for its classic Jiangnan water-town architectural style, with narrow lanes and st...