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 1980s. Initially, the plaza needed to take on a new life as a mixed-use environment. More recently, a growing number of live-work-play residents inspired a new role for Williams Square: one that retained its identity while promoting walkability and active transportation. The original redesign added green space and outdoor seating areas to encourage residents, visitors, and office workers to linger in an identifiably Texan landscape amid sleek new office buildings – recent efforts have reinforced these aspects.
With recent design updates, SWA has refurbished the plaza’s horse sculptures within their signature water feature, refreshing their patina and profile while maintaining the integrity of the original vision. A new overlook and additional shade features have been added to the site, making Williams Square a more fully activated destination that is linked to its surrounding district and continues to serve its ever-growing community. The site’s plantings remain native and local, with live oaks prominent, while the granite plaza and artfully eroded watercourse recall and celebrate the Texan landscape heritage.
Gubei Gold Street
SWA was selected to conceptualize, design, and realize a rare find in bustling Shanghai—a pedestrian mall (Gold Street). The corridor occupies three city blocks, is flanked by 20-story high-rise residential towers with retail at street level and book-ended by SWA-designed parks. Creating an iconic presence and enlivening the area, the mall features plazas, fou...
Burj Khalifa
Playing on the theme of “A Tower in a Park,” this shaded landscape creates a compelling oasis of green, with distinct areas to serve the tower’s hotel, residential, spa and corporate office areas. The visitor begins at the main arrival court at the base of the tower, where the “prow” of the building intersects a grand circular court—a “water room” defined by f...
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...
325 5th Avenue Plaza
A new residential tower has risen across the street from the Empire State Building. As a zoning incentive, a new public plaza was included to attract and accommodate the area’s tourists as well as its diverse office and residential neighborhood. The space is defined by a clean, contemporary design composition of spaces, elements, and custom furniture meant to ...