SWA

When the first Earth Day was held in April 1970, it responded to a wave of visible environmental crises: toxic urban smog, groundwater contamination, rapid biodiversity loss, and unchecked expansion into wetlands, forests, and farmland. Around the same time, SWA was advancing large-scale conservation and open space planning across the West Coast—an early advocate for landscape architects taking on environmental challenges at regional scale, including a whopping 81,000-acre plan for the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. Today, the climate crisis is no longer an abstract threat. Sea-level rise, extreme heat, wildfire, and drought are daily realities. But our discipline has grown in response. With a systems-based understanding of ecology, landscape architects are uniquely equipped to design for decarbonization, climate adaptation, and environmental repair, from carbon sequestration and urban cooling to biodiversity support and flood mitigation. The question is whether we choose to or not. SWA’s Climate Action Plan, released in Fall 2024, outlines a goal to reduce project-based emissions by 50% by 2030, in alignment with ASLA and IPCC targets. In 2025, we’re beginning a benchmarking initiative to measure embodied and operational carbon across our offices and projects—an early step toward greater accountability and long-term change. Much of the work is still ahead. Earth Day, after all, isn’t just about awareness—it’s about action, coordination, and a duty toward generations to come. Learn more: https://lnkd.in/eCh-DcHd — In sequence: Guangming Trail, Hunter’s Point South Park, High Island Audubon Canopy Walk, Buffalo Bayou Park, Milton Street Park, Pacific Plaza, Exploration Green, Alief Neighborhood Center & Park, Nickerson Gardens Playground, California Academy of Sciences, Evelyn’s Park, Golden Gate National Recreation Area

This Wednesday, as part of SF Climate Week, join SWA's Director of Climate Strategy Jonah Susskind for a discussion on how communities can adapt to an increasingly fire-prone world. Learn more and join the waitlist here: https://lu.ma/2s8vo97m

After years of fundraising and planning, Texas Christian University announced a $500M campus-wide expansion this month—a major milestone for the 152-year-old institution, strengthening its role as an economic engine for Fort Worth and North Texas. SWA is proud to partner with TCU, American Campus Communities, Endeavor Real Estate Group, RAMSA | Robert A.M. Stern Architects, Lake|Flato Architects, and others on the transformation of Berry Street into a more walkable civic corridor, better connecting the campus to the city at large. Read more below ⬇️

Southern Gateway Park has a new name — say hello to Halperin Park, thanks to a visionary gift from the Halperin Foundation. This isn’t just a name change — it’s the beginning of a bold new chapter for our park with a purpose.  We can’t wait to show you what’s in store!   #HalperinPark #ParkWithAPurpose April Allen

Join us for Current Work | Capping Highways, Transforming Infrastructure! Highway capping, the intervention of building a deck park over a major roadway, can create new parkland in urban areas, stitching together communities that had been split apart—often along racial lines—and mitigating the negative environmental impacts of open roadways. Yet the barriers to realizing these large-scale infrastructure projects are many. The program will explore the process behind these projects and evaluate their transformative potential to create more equitable, shared public spaces. WHEN: THURS. APR. 24, 2025 @ 6:30 PM WHERE: Higgins Hall Auditorium With an introduction to the structural considerations of these bridges and deck parks by engineer Nat Oppenheimer of TYLin, landscape architects Mary Margaret Jones of Hargreaves Jones Landscape Architecture and Chuck McDaniel, FASLA of SWA Group, will present their current highway capping projects across the country. The event will close with a panel discussion and audience Q&A moderated by Juan Camilo Osorio Botero, professor at Pratt Institute’s Graduate Center for Planning and the Environment. Presented by The Architectural League of New York and Pratt School of Architecture.

Where a 1970s office park once loomed in Houston Heights, five former industrial buildings now form a porous, walkable campus linking directly to the MKT Heights Hike and Bike Trail—a rail-to-trail corridor named for the Missouri-Kansas-Texas state line that once ran through the site. In collaboration with Michael Hsu Office of Architecture, Triten Real Estate Partners, Radom Capital, and others, SWA designed a contiguous public realm flowing across the site, preserving the buildings’ grit while opening it to new uses. Each building’s concrete shell remains, but many have been updated with pathways that bisect the original structure, exposing the steel girders. Plazas are framed by exposed steel structures, serving as a space for artisan markets, a stage for upcoming chefs, and a destination for group gatherings. With the existing buildings lifted to loading dock height, SWA developed an intricate system for vertical circulation that brings guests from the parking area, through outdoor plazas, and up nearly four feet to a catwalk shopping experience. Passive and interactive features connect MKT to the Heights Hike and Bike Trail at its northern edge. While the architecture capitalizes on existing buildings, the landscape employs reused sheet pile walls, recycled concrete, and rain gardens to create a project thoughtfully ingrained into its surroundings. 📷 1, 3, 5: David Lloyd 📷 2, 4, 6: Chase Daniel

Nestled between the Great Wall of China and Yanqi Lake, just 43 miles north of Beijing, the Xingfa Cement Plant supplied vast quantities of concrete mix across China from the early 1990s until its closure in 2015 under the country’s National Air Quality Action Plan. This week, Wallpaper* covered the plant’s gradual transformation into a world-class tech campus, park, and trail system masterplanned by SWA—including an interview with SWA Shanghai Managing Principal Jack Wu. Across from the 17-acre campus, the quarry that once provided raw materials has been reimagined as a terraced, multi-level open space. In the plant’s heyday, only a single willow tree stood on-site; today, the valley is flush with an emerging canopy of elm, mulberry, and arborvitae coaxed from the soil. “Nothing has gone to waste,” writes Daven Wu. “Local stone and shale find new purpose in walls, seating, and tactile paving. Massive excavators now stand as weathered sculptures, while salvaged machinery parts appear as distinctive signage along pathways that link the quarries and reveal the site’s industrial heritage.” https://lnkd.in/eMXcw6AW

"Over more than a decade, Tom and Steuart Walton, grandsons of the Walmart founder, have steered at least $74 million through the family foundation toward the construction of 163 miles of paths and trails for recreation and competition." In Bentonville, Arkansas, where Walmart was founded in 1962, the company's new Home Office campus—collaboratively designed by SWA, Gensler, and a larger team—similarly sets an ambitious target of 10% of its associates commuting by bike. This is largely possible through an extensive multimodal network supported by the Walton family, including seamless connections to 40 miles of trails (including the Razorback Regional Trail and Town Branch Trail) and 1,000 bike parking spots. Read more in The New York Times. https://lnkd.in/g-ESnzPK

As landscape architects, how do we measure and implement climate and nature positive site design? On May 5 at 1 pm ET join Pamela Conrad, ASLA, Founder of Climate Positive Design and Sarah Fitzgerald, ASLA, Associate at SWA in a conversation about how to use the newly released Pathfinder 3.0 app. They'll cover tips, resources, and insights for taking climate and biodiversity action. Register today for this free demo of Pathfinder 3.0: https://bit.ly/4juYNNj Image Credit: Climate Positive Design

Driven by growing housing demand in Vancouver, the city of Burnaby, just a kilometer to the East, has become a focal point in the region's shift toward high-density communities and transit-oriented development. The Amazing Brentwood, encompassing 12 residential towers with retail frontage organized around a SkyTrain station, stands as a prominent example of this trend—now one of British Columbia's largest master-planned mixed-use developments. Originally brought on to produce a master plan in 2013, SWA later returned to design the public realm, shaping streetscapes, planted buffers, and circulation routes across the 28-acre site. The resulting landscape framework links housing, retail, entertainment, and transit areas while prioritizing walkability and access to open space. Along the northern edge, a green corridor accommodates both pedestrians and cyclists, while planted buffers throughout the site help soften the scale of development. Roof gardens adorn each building, echoing Burnaby's long-standing emphasis on integrating landscape into urban form.