Queens West is a new mixed-use community planned for the Long Island City shoreline, directly across from midtown Manhattan and the United Nations. Central to its urban plan is an extensive open space system that includes upland and waterfront parks as well as streetscape. Beginning with conceptual plans the Thomas Balsley Associates team, together with Weintrab di Domineco, presented to an assembled Task Force, with the effort culminating in a full schematic design plan for the urban plan’s parks. The approved plan envisions a diverse open space system for its constituents that offers unmatched passive and active opportunity on or near the water but, more importantly, serves as the thread that stitches the new community to itself, its surrounding community, and the river. Separate reports on phasing, capital costs, operating expenses, maintenance, durability, replacements, park programming, and concessions were prepared prior to the master plan’s final approval. The design team completed full construction documents for the $18 million Phase 1 Park called Gantry Plaza State Park.
Rijskaya District Master Plan
Dubai Opera District
The new Opera District celebrates the adjacent spectacle of the world’s tallest building, while embracing the rhythm of everyday life. For three distinct mixed-use areas within the nearly 100,000-square-meter District anchored by the namesake opera house, SWA’s layered landscape architecture provides visual and experiential coherence using the concept of a mus...
East Riverfront Visions Plan
What is now three miles of underutilized and neglected waterfront property is envisioned as a vibrant new mixed-use community, with a dramatic ribbon of riverfront parks and walkways that are intertwined with small neighborhoods and upland connections. A new open space system was conceived and given form as a critical component of the vision plan in which Tho...
Nanchang Xiangnan Urban Infill
Situated in the capital city of Jiangxi Province, which is known for its rich cultural and ecological resources, the Nanchang Urban Infill project strives to weave two new districts into the historical heart of the city. To the west, a tower and mall create a modern icon for Nanchang. Here, the landscape reinforces the architectural design through a fluid, con...