SWA Group

03/26/2026

Happy opening day for Major League Baseball! Last year, more than 71 million fans attended Major League Baseball games. Millions more tuned in around the world, with the World Series alone averaging 34 million viewers across the U.S., Canada, and Japan and peaking at over 50 million for Game 7.

Before attendees take their seats, the stadium landscape serves as the first inning of the fan experience—guiding movement, easing arrival, and setting the tone from city to seat. These plazas, streetscapes, and open spaces don’t just move crowds; they welcome them, connect them, and extend the energy of the game beyond the stadium.

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Slides 1-2: St. Louis Ballpark Village (St. Louis, MO)
Slides 3-4: Macombs Dam Park (New York, NY)
Slides 5-6: Las Vegas Ballpark (Las Vegas, NV)
Slides 7-8: Texas Rangers Ballpark (Arlington, TX)

03/20/2026

Happy first day of spring. 🌱

In honor of the equinox, a roll call across a few signature and lesser-known projects. In sequence: Golden Shoal Riverfront Park, Buffalo Bayou Park, Bayou Greenways, Charleston Park, Harvest Green, Universidad de Monterrey, Hunter’s Point South Park, Giant Interactive Headquarters, Eucalyptus Society Garden, CSULB Peterson Hall, High Island Audubon Sanctuary, Millbrae Recreation Center

03/18/2026

“Less than five miles north of the center of Santa Fe, Bishop’s Lodge is set on 317 secluded acres at the edge of the Sangre de Cristo foothills and feels far removed from the city’s adobe sprawl,” writes Kevin Doyle for T: The New York Times Style Magazine this week.

“Guests can set out on any of the 10 hiking trails that start directly on the property, taking, for instance, a one-mile trek through pinyon, juniper and sagebrush and up to a ridge with panoramic high-desert views.”

SWA played a central role in the resort’s master plan, working alongside the design team to shape a site-sensitive guest experience across 317 acres in the Sangre de Cristo foothills. Preserving the property’s piñon-juniper woodland was a top priority, guiding other decisions like building placement, circulation, and viewshed protection.

Throughout, planting design layers in drought-tolerant species, with drifts of native grass and high meadow mix forming a hardy understory. Already, mule deer and other wildlife have begun to return and graze, indicators of a functioning high-desert ecosystem where habitat and hydrology are aligned.

🔗 Read the full article:
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/13/t-magazine/hiking-trails-hotels.html

03/12/2026

For many at SWA, the foundation of landscape architecture still begins with drawing, even as advanced applications of digital and AI tools are rapidly transforming how we visualize and communicate design ideas. As new technologies are woven into practice, the mindset behind sketching, iterating, and producing technical drawings remains an essential skill. Whether perfecting the contours of a site plan or diagramming a planting concept, hand drawing keeps designers closely connected to the act of making, reminding us that behind every digital rendering is a human hand shaping the land.

For SWA's 2025 Patrick T. Curran Fellowship, a range of senior and mid-level designers at the firm spoke about the importance of sketching and mentorship, including Andrew Gressett (Houston), Chuck McDaniel (Dallas), Ji Hyun Yoo, and Jim Lee (both San Francisco).

03/11/2026

Landscape architecture has always evolved in response to constraints. Today, as pressure mounts to decarbonize the built environment, a familiar set of questions are emerging around the aesthetic expectations associated with low-carbon design.

Material sourcing, planting strategies, and construction methods all shape a project’s embodied carbon. They also mean tangible changes in a landscape’s form, texture, and character. As these decisions begin to shift in a more climate-friendly direction, so too does the visual language of contemporary landscapes.

As part of our ongoing blog series, The Low-Carbon Landscape, SWA’s Director of Climate Strategy Jonah Susskind looks at ways these shifts are registering in parks, campuses, playgrounds, and other spaces across our portfolio.

Read the full story:
https://www.swagroup.com/stories/what-does-the-low-carbon-landscape-look-like/

03/05/2026

“As a whole, it’s a remarkable second turn for a swath of land that has been all but drained of its resources,” writes Nate Berg for Fast Company, covering SWA’s recently-opened Xingfa Quarry Park. “In a unique design move, the extractive processes that cut this landscape into a pixelated cavity are not hidden away but rather emphasized, centering the raw, destructive nature of the quarry’s past life into a landscape experience.”

Located between the Great Wall and Yanqi Lake, the quarry once supplied raw materials to the Beijing Xingfa Cement Plant, an adjacent industrial complex that operated for more than two decades before closing in 2015 under China’s National Air Quality Action Plan.

Within the quarry’s elevated pit, locally sourced stone and shale have been sculpted into concentric terraces that cap contaminated soils and mask the scale of excavation. These landforms anchor a restoration strategy that transforms what was once a barren void—marked by a single surviving willow—into a layered system of plant communities adapted to rocky, alkaline soils. Arborvitae stabilize steep slopes, nitrogen-fixing species enrich thin soils, and smoke tree, mulberry, and elm establish canopy and seasonal change. At the quarry’s southwestern edge, a seasonal pond captures stormwater runoff, reducing erosion across the quarry floor while creating wetland habitat.

Read the full piece: https://www.fastcompany.com/91502586/the-quarry-that-built-modern-beijing-gets-a-surprising-second-life?

02/27/2026

As a key trade hub in the Yangtze River Delta, Suzhou’s urban fabric has been overlaid with a lattice of canals since its founding in 514 BCE, creating a parallel system of streets and waterways that have organized commerce and daily life for more than two millennia.

Huamao Center, a new 23.5-acre mixed-use district along the Shantang Canal at the edge of the historic old town, extends this spatial logic into a contemporary setting—layering multi-level retail, office, hospitality, and cultural spaces into a human-scaled network of streets, plazas, and waterfronts structured by water. Backed by an investment of nearly $1.27 billion, the project brings together the Suzhou MixC World retail center, a new Ritz-Carlton hotel, the Tadao Ando–designed H+ Art Museum, Class A office towers, and clustered residential blocks, positioning the district less as a standalone complex than as an extension of the surrounding canal city.

Urban design for the overall district—a collaboration between SWA, KPF, and The Oval Partnership—includes retail streets implemented by Lab D+H, and organizes the neighborhood into diagonal alleys, elevated walkways, and pitched rooflines that recall the city’s classic Jiangnan water town architectural style.

➡️ Swipe through to learn more.

02/26/2026

We're honored to share that Live Oak Park Playground received a Park Planning Award of Excellence from the California Park & Recreation Society.

“The opening of the Live Oak Park Playground has been a celebration for the City,” said Temple City Mayor Cynthia Sternquist. “This playground is a place to honor imagination and where communities gather to create memories.”

Recognizing the team's commitment to community engagement, aesthetic quality, long-term functionality, and inclusive access, the award recognizes the playground for thoughtful planning and lasting impact.

Learn more:
https://www.swagroup.com/projects/temple-city-playgrounds/

02/24/2026

Since 2007, SWA has invited staff to explore research topics that expand the discipline through innovation, led by the annual Patrick T. Curran Fellowship. In this interview with Co-CEO Gerdo Aquino, he talks about the inception of the program, created in honor of a talented SWA designer who passed away. Recounting their early days working in the Sausalito studio, then reuniting in LA, Gerdo provides insight into his relationship with Patrick and how his dedication to research inspired a core aspect of the firm.

Since its inception, over 65 fellows have produced over 50 research theses ranging from practice-based research to AI to exploring SWA's ESOP structure. For 2025's selection, San Francisco Marketing Manager Jennifer Hung and Dallas Associate Hank Thomas turned the focus inward, interviewing senior and mid-level designers to understand the details behind SWA's longevity and how to continue this success into the future.

Stay tuned for more.

02/17/2026

Happy Year of the Fire Horse from SWA.

02/14/2026

Spanning 14 acres along Brays Bayou, Club Creek Basin Park layers green infrastructure with public space, draining a key segment of Southwest Houston’s 100-year floodplain. Conceived as part of a broader regional flood mitigation strategy, the park is organized around a 120-acre-foot terraced detention basin, a 2-acre permanent pool, and constructed wetlands that slow, filter, and absorb stormwater.

Completed in 2023, the park weaves multi-use trails into the larger Brays Bayou Greenway and regional trail systems, alongside elevated playgrounds, fitness areas, and open lawns designed to remain accessible during heavy rain events. A core feature is the Vietnam Veterans War Memorial, honoring 543 fallen service members from the Houston area with a black marble centerpiece and steel backdrop.

The project recently received multiple local honors, including two ULI Development of Distinction Awards—tying for the Open Space Award and earning the 2026 People’s Choice Award—as well as recognition from the Houston-Galveston Area Council for Projects Over $500,000.

Congratulations to the full team, including the City of Houston, the Southwest Houston Redevelopment Authority (TIRZ 20), Millis Development & Construction, Walter P. Moore, E&C Engineers & Consultants, Houston City Council District J, and the Harris County Flood Control District.

02/11/2026

This year, SWA Co-CEO Gerdo Aquino joins the jury for AN's 2026 Best of Practice Awards, sharing his perspective on contemporary design culture and the responsibilities of practice today. Read more in The Architect's Newspaper.

Gerdo Aquino, co-CEO and principal of SWA, is a juror for The Architect’s Newspaper’s Best of Practice Awards. AN spoke with Aquino on what goes into designing a practice and what he’ll be looking for in submissions.