Evolving trends in technology and the need to build a new, state-of-the-art Electronics Training Center allowed Samsung to commission the collaborative team of Samoo Architects and Thomas Balsley Associates for the design of their new facility in Keyonggi-Do Province in Korea. Essential to both Samsung and the design team was a site design solution that would be seamlessly integrated into its natural rural environment as well as foster effective sustainable strategies.
Nestled at the base of wooded hills in a natural ravine, the promontories of the training center’s site feel the warm embrace of its natural environment. The landscape concept invites the natural vegetation into the center’s perimeter edges to help blur the lines of the manmade and natural landscape. That same landscape of ravine and promontory has inspired the reinterpreted versions that are employed throughout the campus.
Metaphorical forest “fragments” strike a dialogue with the “built” landscape within. This act of replication is revealed in combination with the mounded forms and small hills that take the cue from the adjoining topography. More formalized plantings complement the landscape courtyard’s hardscape whose skeletal system expresses architectural modulations and sensibilities into a refined landscape language. As social spaces, the courtyard is dressed in more formal and sophisticated planting arrays that bring visual interest throughout the seasons.
As a central theme, the concept of water traverses the site from east to west as an organizing site element. Taking different forms with different purposes, water is embedded into the campus landscape concepts. The most meaningful and powerful expression is that of the “mountain stream” or rill. As one might expect of a ravine, the stream is the connective link between the hills and their valleys and the behind world. The strength of its straight-line geometry and the accompanying light effects will become one of the most provocative and memorable aspects of a visit or stay on campus. At each subtle change in outdoor elevation, the water’s effects are diversified, sometimes for visual and sometimes for audio effects.
Medgar Evers College
This new quad provides a unifying pedestrian connection between Bedford and Franklin Avenues and between existing and new campus buildings, finally providing the campus with a cohesive identity and sense of place. With the dramatic transformation of a parking lot into more campus green space comes the opportunity to integrate a series of sustainability strateg...
University of Chicago Booth School of Business
This project regenerates a spectacular, historic cliff-side waterfront site by activating it with new purpose. Working carefully to interweave layers of preservation and natural beauty, the building and landscape work together to leave a light footprint. Today, a distinctive global campus honors the history of its earlier occupation while providing inspiration...
Stanford University Campus Planning and Projects
Over the past 20 plus years SWA has been working with Stanford University to reclaim the 100-year-old master plan vision of Leland Stanford and Frederick Law Olmsted for the campus. This series of campus improvement projects has restored the historic axis, open spaces, and landscape patterns. With Stanford Management Company, SWA designed the Sand Hill corrido...
New Jersey Institute of Technology Green
This campus, like many others, has suffered from the lack of a coherent plan, rendering its campus experience to a series of passages through disconnected interstitial spaces. A key component of the landscape master plan was the identification of new building sites on campus that would shed light on a comprehensive assessment of open spaces and movement system...