DETAILS
The SWA/Morphosis team, in partnership with Cecilia Estolano of ELP, Dan Biederman of BRV, Buro Happold, Sam Schwartz Engineering, and Walker Parking, reimagined the heart of downtown Los Angeles during a eight-month design competition.
The proposal reasserts Pershing Square as a dynamic, living platform that animates the urban center and advances Los Angeles as a vibrant cultural capital and global leader in sustainability. Practical concerns tackled by the design team included reorganizing below-grade parking, connecting the site to public transit, locating bike share hubs, and innovative infrastructure, such as purple pipe greywater recycling through reciprocal wetlands.
Distinct Southern California ecologies lie at the base of a solar-powered hydroponic urban farming tower. The park provides the vital park elements that everyone enjoys, while advancing a future of economic and ecological sustainability.
Westmoor Natural Science & Ecology Park
Westmoor Park is a 168-acre educational and recreational setting where visitors are encouraged to experience the natural world about them with the guidance of interpretive personnel. The park includes four separate areas, one of which is an Administration and Reception area with facilities for drop-off, group orientation, and parking. The Natural Science and E...
NY Times
Thomas Balsley was selected by the New York Times as the only landscape architect in a cast of world-renowned architects to participate in the NY Times Capsule Design Competition. Mr. Balsley’s submission was selected as a finalist, exhibited, and published in the NY Times Magazine’s final series on the Millennium.
Magok Waterfront Park
As one of the six mega-project sites known as the Han River Renaissance Plan, the city of Seoul Korea is transforming the 300-acre Magok site of ex-urban sprawl and marginally productive agricultural land into a new major metropolitan park thematically focusing on history and nature. With over 300 entries worldwide Thomas Balsley Associates, in collaboration w...
Korea House
SAMOO Architects and Thomas Balsley Associates received first place in the international design competition for a new Korean Cultural Center. The collaboration blends indoor and outdoor spaces including two rooftop terraces that celebrate traditional Korean beauty and advanced Korean technology through contemporary translations of the Korean garden. Korean sto...