This corporate campus is sited in a natural woodland, punctuated with ravines, dry streambeds, and the companion beech and birch stands found in this area. The facility’s size, one million square feet, is deconstructed into smaller programmatic components that are expressed in two linear building forms connected by enclosed walkways at two locations and divided by a courtyard. The building’s square footage generates considerable parking demands which have been accommodated in perimeter parking structures that have helped preserve the site’s natural wooded open space and ravines.
The courtyard garden reinterprets the site’s natural features in the form of contemporary metaphorical ravine, linking the buildings’ occupants, particularly those with central orientation, to their environment. The courtyard invites occupation for dining, conference or intimate escaped from the structured work environment. Shale ledge, pre-cast walls, and bands extend the building’s geometry into the site; intersecting curving pathways and broken shale ravine to heighten the provocative dialogue between the built and natural environment. Site grading has been directed to the ravine for stormwater management and filtration. Seasonal plantings and perennial beds add color and scale to the visual experience from within, and enrich the visitor’s stroll.
This strongly linear landscape culminates in a birch grove, from which to view or enter the natural woods and ravine just beyond. The cafeteria terrace enjoys its own space, as well as unobstructed views and access to the site’s wooded ravine, stream, and walking/jogging trails that traverse the property’s preserved wooded edges The transition from metaphor to reality compels the viewer to consider the man-made landscape’s place in the natural environment, and engages the occupant in a provocative struggle for balance.
Intercontinental Hotel
Located in the center of the vibrant Times Square district, this new four-star hotel (one of only three in New York City) serves as the base for well-traveled tourists, businessmen and dignitaries from around the world. As a unique product of the hotel’s branding and place-making strategy, the client asked that the courtyard make a memorable first impression o...
Busan Lotte Tower
Busan Lotte World is an extraordinary mixed-use destination for residential, office, hotel, shopping, entertainment, and tourism and includes one of the tallest buildings in the world at 107 stories. The SOM designed tower is composed of four buildings that connect to each other internally via a covered arcade.
The landscape strikes a dramatic pose in t...
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...
Rosewood Sand Hill Hotel
SWA provided full landscape architectural services for this mixed-use development, which includes a 120-room luxury hotel, five villa residences, a supporting office complex, fitness center, spa and multi-use space. The Sand Hill Hotel and associated offices are nestled onto a dramatic hillside that slopes toward the Santa Cruz Mountains immediately beyond I-2...