SWA

SWA wishes you a joyful Diwali and a prosperous New Year! #Diwali

This month, ASLA released "Landscape Architecture 2040: Climate & Biodiversity Action Plan." SWA Associate Principal Mariana Ricker served as lead author for the plan’s climate goal, working as part of a five-member task force alongside Meg Calkins, Diane Jones Allen, Jennifer Dowdell, and Andrew Wickham. The document was further refined with input from a diverse, 34-member advisory panel, which included SWA Associate Sarah Fitzgerald. After an intensive eight-month development process, the Action Plan outlines a pathway for landscape architects to achieve zero greenhouse gas emissions in their projects and operations, increase carbon sequestration, and protect and restore biodiversity in an equitable way by 2040. Read more below ⬇️

Join us in celebrating the 10th anniversary of Buffalo Bayou Park, which opened in October 2015. For most of the 20th century, Houston turned its back on its primary waterway, treating Buffalo Bayou as little more than a drainage channel even as the city grew and flooding concerns mounted. That changed in 2010, when the Kinder Foundation gave the Buffalo Bayou Partnership a $30 million catalyst gift to transform 2.3 miles of the bayou into civic green space. Today, the two-and-a-half-mile park’s system of paths, bridges, and varied destinations connects to a growing regional trail system, anchoring Houston’s public realm while connecting downtown to adjacent neighborhoods. It also plays a central role in the city’s resilience to more frequent and intense rain events—strategic design decisions allowed the park to weather multiple major flood events since its opening, and the project has served as an international case study in how flood infrastructure can also serve as park space. Beloved features include opportunities for boating and cycling, pedestrian bridges, nature play and trails, a skateboard park, a dog park, a restaurant, performance venues, and an immense underground cistern reimagined as an immersive art space. At dusk, residents and visitors amass to watch over 200,000 Mexican free-tailed bats emerge from beneath Waugh Drive Bridge, stippling the night sky. It’s an understatement to say SWA is proud to have shaped a project so integral to Houston’s civic life, thanks to decades of advocacy and collaboration that continues today.

Last week, SWA Houston hosted students from The University of Texas at Austin. Part of Professor Liang Wang's Advanced Urban Design Studio I course, the group stopped by the office during their Houston field study trip. During their visit, designers from the SWA team — Natalia Beard, Na Wang, Andrew Gressett, Triciajane A., Adam Scott, Robert Oliver, Olivia Pinner, and Allan Perez — introduced the students to SWA’s culture and design process. The visit concluded with a tour of the studio, including its terrace and rooftop garden—both designed by the Houston team—followed by a happy hour overlooking downtown.

This summer, the Ballona Creek Bike Path Extension—a long-anticipated project to close a decades-old gap in Los Angeles’s seven-mile bikeway and pedestrian corridor—secured $6.4 million in funding from the California Transportation Commission (CTC) in a unanimous vote. Designed by SWA in partnership with nonprofit advocacy organization Streets For All, the project will extend the path nearly two miles to the east to Venice and Cochran, getting people from Mid City to West LA and the beach on a car-free path. Combined with prior commitments from the Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG), the City of Los Angeles, and the City of Culver City, a total of $7 million has now been secured to advance environmental clearance and technical design work, bringing the project to shovel-ready status. Hear from SWA Co-CEO Gerdo Aquino, FASLA, Councilwoman Heather Hutt, and Founder and CEO of Streets for All Michael Schneider on how the project was revitalized. Learn more about the project here: https://lnkd.in/escvMnXc Special thanks to the Cities of Culver City and Los Angeles, former Culver City Mayor Thomas Small, Supervisor Holly J. Mitchell, the Baldwin Hills and Urban Watersheds Conservancy, the City of Los Angeles Bureau of Engineering, LADOT, Metro, SCAG, and CTC.

Since opening in late 2024, River Street Marketplace has become one of Orange County’s most beloved destinations. SWA led the site’s rezoning and planning process over nine years to align the design with community values and San Juan Capistrano’s historic, agrarian character. Gravel pathways, native plantings, and shaded courtyards evoke the area’s rustic heritage, while flexible outdoor spaces invite dining, play, and informal gathering. Reclaimed wood and materials were sourced within 300 miles of the site in Los Rios, reducing embodied carbon and deepening the project’s connection to place. The final design, developed in collaboration with RSM Design and Bickel Group Architecture, is a community hub that feels both historic and new—grounded in the rhythms of local life, celebrating California’s oldest neighborhood while adapting for its future.

Join us this Friday, October 10 for Reconnecting Dallas: A Hard Hat Tour of Halperin Park, part of the Architecture Matters series, presented by McLaughlin Insurance, LLC! Register now >> https://ow.ly/RMxK50X8MP6 Formerly known as Southern Gateway Park, Halperin Park spans I-35E between Ewing and Marsalis Avenues. The future five-acre bridge park will reconnect historic Oak Cliff and ignite environmental, economic, and community revitalization. Designed by HKS, Inc. with landscape architect SWA, Halperin Park’s first phase is expected to open in early 2026. Tour led by McCarthy Building Companies, Inc.