IDEAS | landscape architecture / planning / urban design

SWA San Francisco was recently shortlisted together with partner Studios Architecture and a handful of other teams for an ideas competition for the Berkeley Global Campus at Richmond Bay. The 130-acre site along the bay’s edge is just seven miles from the current campus and will grant graduate degrees related to world health, climate change,… Read more »

Judged by a panel that ranged from developers to professors, the design process raised unique questions for landscape architecture in the globally transformed Anthropocene. Our investigations will certainly inform the future of the campus, but I continue to wonder about the larger cultural forces at play in spaces that will be transformed by climate change. Most importantly, how might the designer aid the articulation of such processes in ways that are culturally poignant?

In The Aesthetics of Disappearance, architect-turned-philosopher Paul Virilio writes, “The pursuit of forms is only a pursuit of time, and if there are no stable forms, there are no forms at all.” In his exploration of the effect of societal acceleration upon object perception, he frames the paradox forced upon designers facing an era of significant climate change. As landscape architects, we are fairly comfortable with change in the ecological realm—ideas of succession and ecological process are as old as our trade—even if it is often difficult to convince the public or clients of proposals that recognize these concepts. Inextricable from the ecological changes we will witness, however, are the more numerous and complex cultural shifts that will inevitably accompany these changes.

How can designers frame relationships to indeterminacy? How might the politics of the future be influenced by those of us who will shape interactions in liminal spaces such as the unknown extents of sea level rise? Perhaps some degree of vulnerability in the design itself offers the most good when the importance of such perceptions is valued. What could such landscapes look like and where would they exist?

Before these bigger questions could be explored, basic planning solutions were addressed to restore access to the bay for Richmond itself. One of several site frameworks emphasized easy and immediate access by foot to the surrounding and often marginalized communities and schools. Curiously, these paths found alignments with historic Eucalyptus windbreaks—one of the early results of European settlement in California that now hold significant cultural merit despite their common dismissal as an invasive.

Our proposal insisted (refreshingly) that the water be allowed to enter the site, proscribing a landscape design not framed by promises of permanence, but one which generates its identity through the changes across its breadth that would come with saline intrusion and the accompanying shift of native ecotones. Change itself becomes the generator of the site’s identity into the future and the landscape will invariably overcome the frames that situated it on day one, such that subtle migrations might be visible over time. If one approach is to emphasize this poetry of change, we were able to design for such transformation here.

Painter Rene Magritte stated, “I never show bizarre or strange things in my paintings…but ordinary things that are gathered and transformed in such a way that we’re made to think that there’s something else of an unfamiliar nature that appears at the same time as familiar.” As forward-thinking designers, perhaps we can follow his message and not just mark change, but embrace how this change might fracture the design frame itself and reveal its own history.

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Posted by Erik Jensen
in Ecology, Urban Ecologies, Urbanism & Planning
on 22 May, 2015

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Established in 1990, Retrospect is an annual public outreach event organized by the Dallas Chapter of the American Institute of Architects. Hosted at the NorthPark Center (a prominent Dallas mall), its purpose is to introduce Dallas-area design firms to the local community and raise funds for the Dallas AIA Chapter. The exhibition consists of three-dimensional displays demonstrating how designers can lead efforts toward making our cities better places to reside. This was the third year SWA Dallas participated in the event along with 20 other firms.

Our project investigated the quantity of park space in Dallas, both in its entirety and by council district. The outcome was an unbiased survey of one of our city’s most valuable assets—quality open space. Each of our seven frames represented two council districts and highlighted the percentage of park space to total area. The green space was represented by air plants suspended within each frame. The amounts varied greatly from district to district, which meant that the quantity of air plants intensified as the viewer peered through the installation from multiple vantage points. Dallas can currently claim just seven percent of parks space.

The process from start to finish lasted about a month and served as a great opportunity to bring the office together to creatively explore ideas apart from the normal scope of our work. Over the course of a few lunch and happy hour meetings, we honed in on a concept and began figuring out how to materialize it. Week one involved sketching ideas and reaching out to local fabricators for access to more sophisticated machinery to help realize our vision. When digital fabrication proved to be a dead end, we hit the drawing board once again and prepared to make the installation ourselves the old-fashioned way. It was time to get our hands dirty. Week two was spent roaming the aisles of Home Depot purchasing supplies and mocking up the frames and concrete base to help us better understand what we were getting ourselves into.

After working out (most) of the bugs during week two, weeks three and four were all about production. We hit plenty of snags along the way, but each forced us to take a step back, reconsider certain aspects of the project, and ultimately improve our vision. We greatly underestimated the amount of paint needed, and three quarters of the way through hit supply issues with the particular color we were using. Nearly finished with the installation, we had to go back and revise our strategy. Attempting to juggle our busy office schedules with finalizing the design and construction of our installation led to many late nights toward the end of the process, but fueled by Coronitas and home-cooked fajitas (props to Luis Carrera’s family!), everything came together nicely.

Special thanks to Donny Zellefrow, Luis Carrera, Jean-Pierre Casillas, Yuan Ren, Amanda Kronk, Leah Hales, and Jianchun Zhu for their ideas, sweat, and help along the way.

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Posted by Joseph Kensel
in Arts and Culture
on 15 May, 2015

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Every year nearly two million visitors flock to the isolated city of Cabo San Lucas, on the southern tip of North America’s West Coast, to experience the beautiful geography where desert meets sea. Among the numerous high-end resorts there is a five-star standout called The Resort at Pedregal, where I spent 20 days during January… Read more »

What sets this place apart from the other world-class luxury resorts in Cabo is its unique location between the rocky Pedregal mountainside and the Pacific Ocean. Accessible only by a 300-meter-long tunnel bored directly through granite, The Resort at Pedregal has unimpeded sunset ocean views on a pristine, white-sand beach that was virtually inaccessible before the site construction. SWA Dallas provided full landscape architectural services there, drawing inspiration from local culture, plants, and geography. Since opening in 2009, the resort has consistently ranked in the top three on lists for best Mexican resorts in U.S. News & World Report and Travel + Leisure.

Together with all the beauty and tranquility that this oceanfront site offers, there is also the looming potential for disaster. And in 2014, it struck hard. Hurricane Odile hit Cabo San Lucas on September 14th; with sustained winds of up to 125 mph it was the strongest hurricane ever to make landfall in the Baja Peninsula. Situated smack between a mountain and a hurricane, my future home away from home took a beating.

Immediately after the storm passed, the resort began rebuilding. Every day without visitors is a major loss for a regional economy based on tourism, so they hit the ground running with the goal of being operational ASAP. Nearly everything that was constructed five years before had to be rebuilt or refinished in some way. It was primarily an exercise of removing and replacing anything that had been affected by the saltwater, pelting rocks, and winds, (which was 90 percent of everything on site). SWA was rehired to redesign and oversee construction of the site landscape. Which is how I ended up on the scene.

As the Dallas office updated the plans, a unique opportunity to improve upon lessons learned surfaced. We requested input from the hotel management group, the everyday users (the most important opinion), hotel staff, and outside contractors that provided event set-up and landscape maintenance services. These groups commented on what worked well before and what could be done to better suit their as well as their guest’s needs. Incorporating these updates into the new set of plans provided a better understanding of the project as an inhabited space, and SWA was able to improve on its design.

While providing the on-site field work necessary to complete such a fast-paced project, I was able to make decisions based on input from hotel staff and landscape maintenance crews, who knew the constraints of the site better than anyone else. I worked from sunup to sundown, taking advantage of every hint of daylight to assist the landscape crews with moving boulders, spacing plants, facing trees, and reviewing the plant material brought in every day. The only downtime was a 30-minute lunch, when most of the laborers would take a quick nap in the shade or grab some food at the hotel staff cafeteria. I tried to find new people to practice Spanish with, invariably a two-way lesson. It was a nice way to unwind before heading back to the chaotic work day and many of the hotel staff enjoyed it as much as I did.

One particularly challenging aspect of the job was finding replacement plant material. As the hurricane affected such a large geographical area, regional nurseries and growers had also lost much of their plant inventory. And with a large number of resorts all attempting to replace damaged plants at the same time there was a very limited supply. Replacing plants was a constant battle; we continually found more dead plants as the pelting rocks from the strong winds had penetrated cacti, causing them to slowly rot out. A lot of mixing and matching of existing and new plants occurred to find matching sizes.

As the weeks counted down to days it seemed like the rebuilding would not be finished for the opening on January 31st, but in the final hours we pulled it off with the help of everyone on site. Waiters and bellhops ran wheelbarrows of plants across the site while bartenders and concierge assistants swept up debris. Just before the first guests arrived, perfection was once again achieved for The Resort at Pedregal, only this time even better.

This project serves as a model of interoffice collaboration to effectively complete a project as it moves from design to construction and the potential for design improvement with keeping the user top of mind and actively involved in the process.

Watch a video of the re-opening at The Resort at Pedregal, courtesy of the resort:

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One Response to “Building it Twice: Post-hurricane Lessons from a World-class Resort”

Robert C Jones, PLA ASLA

Dear SWA,
Nice article, it reminds me of my 5th year BLA Thesis project. I studied 2 island resorts in Ambergris Caye Belize. One of the many discoveries I made was that one of the resorts recycled hurricane damaged material to create an artificial reef. This new amenity was a huge hit, open the everyone and created needed habitat for thousands of sea creatures. If I may suggest, in the future using artificial reefs to reduce material removal costs by recycling “clean material”, habitat creation and recreation opportunities. It is truly a win win win.
Please let me know if you have any questions about my thesis.
Thank you,
Robert C Jones, PLA ASLA
Robert.jones.c@gmail.com
May 11th, 2015 Reply

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Posted by Shaun Loomis
in Ecology, Performance Planning, Restoration
on 8 May, 2015

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It’s no news that the Golden State is potentially facing its most serious drought ever. The topic has been a media staple since NASA released an alarming report revealing that California has one year of water left in its surface water reservoirs. With water resources already being stressed—increased population growth and a decrease in available… Read more »

With water resources already being stressed—increased population growth and a decrease in available surface water supplies are putting a squeeze on communities across the state—future trends will only compound existing conditions. As the most populous state, California is expected to reach 50 million people by 2050. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report from 2013, California will continue to experience reduced snow packs and warmer temperatures. These conditions will lead to increased evaporation and a reduction in available water for both urban areas and agriculture. Food security for Californians and the multitudes of other Americans who depend on its food and wine production, will be further challenged.

Of the total precipitation which falls in California, 50 percent is infiltrated into soils in rural areas or piped to the ocean in urban areas. The other 50 percent is appropriated for human use. Of the latter, 80 percent is channeled to agriculture and the rest is diverted for residential use. The hydrologic cycle in California needs to be understood and used as a formative system in urban planning and design to ensure resiliency for our communities and for the state’s economy.

First we need to maximize the capture and storage of the 50 percent that returns to the environment. In order to retain and improve rainfall for future years, we need to allow precipitation to infiltrate into soils for uptake by plants and release back to the atmosphere through evapotranspiration. We can capture 100 percent of rainfall events up to a 100-year-storm level at the neighborhood and city scale through high-performing open spaces, which include bioswales, rain gardens, and detention ponds. For 100-year+ events, the regional scale can be used to lay out a matrix of large, interconnected open spaces.

The next 50 percent has the big finger pointing at agriculture. Yet, by arranging our cities based on the water cycle we can reduce our use of potable water. Currently, recycled water is used to irrigate vast areas of ornamental landscapes that surround our urban environs. What if we reconfigure these decorative landscapes and turn them into productive members of society by creating a heterogonous patchwork of agricultural open spaces stitching together our communities—places where recycled water becomes the formative system. Graywater from residential areas can then be filtered to acceptable agricultural levels and used to either offset or replace surface water demands. Instead of fields of stagnant groundcovers and static trees, the landscape will come to life with shifts in seasons, workers, and harvests and people will become connected to their food, farmers, and water use. A local food network will be generated, with grocery stores, farmers markets, and restaurants all benefiting from the local supplies. Local food brings local jobs, and local spending compounds the multiplier effect.

Farm areas in close proximity to sources of recycled water are at a unique advantage over others especially in time of drought and in a future that is anticipated to be far more water-scarce. Agriculture is part of the identity and economy of California. A radical shift in everyone’s way of life is required. As the population in California continues to grow, so will the demand for water, food, and land. Our ability to offer ingenious solutions to these issues will be essential to sustaining the places we live.

Image courtesy of Michael McCullough via Flickr: http://tinyurl.com/mu9fo37

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Posted by Paul Peters
in Ecology, Urban Ecologies
on 1 May, 2015

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An “urban village” is a very unique spatial and social landscape formed by the rapid urbanization process in China’s major cities. It’s a rural village surrounded by urban development rather than farmland. The land for housing is owned by village collectives instead of a municipal authority. Moreover, the residents in the urban village are a… Read more »

Urban villages feature overcrowded, informal dwellings in the vicinity of well-developed urban districts. In this type of settlement formation, the traditional one- or two-story village has given way to seven- to eight-story buildings. Without the enforcement of city building codes and regulations, the villagers build high-density housing through the construction of additional floors to maximize their profitable rental space. At the same time, the residential plot layout and street network have not changed from the designs meant to serve the previously rural village. The multi-storied buildings protrude along the streets and are so close to each other that their residents can imagine reaching out to touch their neighbors, and have dubbed the buildings “shaking hands” buildings, and “kissing buildings.” These types of developments make urban villages so unique.

Local governments have been motivated to remove urban villages, as they are considered eyesores, sources of urban crime, and obstacles to housing development. However, urban planners have advocated for the preservation of urban villages to some extent, in the interest of social equality. Urban villages can provide housing for those excluded from the formal housing market by the household registration system, people like rural migrants. Urban villages provide housing for millions of rural migrant workers in need of affordable housing.

Dachong Village, in Shenzhen, China, is the largest urban village transformation project in the world’s fastest-growing city. SWA’s Los Angeles studio has been working on an urban renewal project there for the last three years. The land acquisition process has been difficult and the compensation for the villager’s housing has become very high. The planning process has involved years of negotiation and collaboration between the government, the villagers, and the developer. In 2007, China Resources Co., a government-owned development company, took on the transformation of the 70-hectare Dachong Village. The development includes a CBD (central business district), a gated community, a 100-story high-rise office tower, a five-star hotel, and a 180,000-square-meter shopping mall. China Resources Co. has used modern urban planning to develop this reclaimed land, while responding to society, market forces, and even art and religion.

This urban renewal project replaces 100 percent of the existing buildings, with the exception of two temples that have been rebuilt in an effort to preserve their historical significance. One, the Dawang Temple, is where village people worship Matsu, a goddess protecting fishermen and sailors. The temple is situated at one corner of the office block. A pedestrian tunnel goes under the temple, and a sunken plaza five meters deep sits in between the high-rise office tower and the temple. After the SWA design team analyzed the hierarchy of circulation, proximity of programs, and 3-D modeling of the site, they came up with an innovative idea: using the sunken plaza as a “veil” between the office tower and the historic temple.

In this scheme, grand steps flow down from the office tower to the sunken plaza, forming an amphitheater with sloped sides and covered with vegetation. The views from the steps focus on mist created by a fountain in the plaza and a water wall. The temple is situated above the water wall at ground level. When people overlook the sunken plaza from the office entry, the temple is revealed as a withdrawn object gleaming behind the water wall and mist fountain. As they descend the steps and approach the mist fountain and water wall, the temple disappears from view. The pilgrims at the temple will be separated from workers at the office tower by this significant grade change. From the experience of working on this project, SWA has learned that embracing conflicting user needs on a site does not weaken the identity of the place. To the contrary, the temple is a meaningful symbol of culture and an homage to the past, which adds cultural nuance to this recognizable landmark.

Urban Villages are the evidence of a particular time on our history, which is why the designers decided to record this moment using an engraved city map on the water wall within the sunken plaza. The water wall is the division and, conversely, also the connection between the temple’s past and its present. To produce the engraving, aerial photographs were compared with maps of the region’s layout. From above, the village looks like an overcrowded slum without a single breathable space, but in the two-dimensional ground-level drawings, the height of the buildings is eliminated from the perspective and the bucolic features of the rural village appear. Finally, the design team used Grasshopper software to repeat the layout, while doubling, then tripling and quadrupling the distance between buildings. The result creates a separation between the structures, allowing one to take in their individual beauty.

Image of Dachong village courtesy of China Resources Co.

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Posted by Jing Zhang
in Landscape Urbanism, Urbanism & Planning
on 24 April, 2015

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When I was a kid growing up in Hangzhou, a city in southern China, I lived very close to a community park that I often visited after school. I especially loved playing on the slides and a grand tube. After I entered the fourth grade and had homework to finish, I continued to beg my mom to go play in the park, but the answer was surely “no.” “It’s dark, and no one is there,” she would say. “Play at home and go to sleep early.” Looking down at the park from the apartment window, it was dark and did look unsafe. Whenever I relive that memory now, I imagine a glimpse of light in that space of darkness—something to warm a child’s heart.

Over the past few decades, urban playgrounds have been innovated and diversified to serve the locals better. Since 2010, nonprofits have been sponsoring and initiating urban playground movements in the UK, calling generally for more playscapes in the community and for more innovative urban playground systems. Lately, playground lighting is being used creatively to encourage social activities and enhance attachment to special places—and, most importantly, to generate lots of fun in the community.

Creative playground ideas are mushrooming throughout the landscape design and arts fields. Online, you can find architectural playhouses that kids can travel in and out of, huge nets and slides that can be shared by five children at once, and enormous sculptures used both as playground equipment and decoration. A few weeks ago, an interesting article posted on the Innovative Playgrounds website sparked my interest. It detailed how several playgrounds successfully activate the local parks and help bring locals together using the magic of light.

Boston-based architects Howeler + Yoon offer a fine example of playgrounds employing LEDS. The firm’s “Swing Time” consists of 20 illuminated, ring-shaped swings designed in three different sizes. Each ring changes color as it rotates and swings, and then becomes white again when still. The idea is to provide more play opportunities in urban parks (playgrounds are not only for kids!), to enhance the general image of parks, and to increase social and communication activities. All age groups enjoy the design. People are curious and excited about it, and want to share it with each other. The swings become a medium through which people can bond emotionally and form a community.

The “Tilt of Light” LED seesaw project designed by Melbourne, Australia-based art and design firm ENESS is also inspiring. Two people are required to engage the seesaws, the colors of which intensify according to the degree they’re tilted. Both examples of lighted playground equipment have adapted responsive LED light technology to attract curious locals to play, and both arouse a sense of nostalgia. Their lighting effects and simplicity in form make the playgrounds employing them iconic destinations. “Swing Time” and “Tilt of Light” not only illuminate the spaces they adorn, but light up the smiles of those engaging them.

Image of “Swing Time” courtesy of Howeler + Yoon.

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Posted by Shengyi Yue
in Arts and Culture, Community
on 17 April, 2015

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Space, Time and Landscape Architecture in the Face of Climate Crisis

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Learning from “Retrospect”

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Building it Twice: Post-hurricane Lessons from a World-class Resort

One Response to “Building it Twice: Post-hurricane Lessons from a World-class Resort”

Robert C Jones, PLA ASLA

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California Dreamin’? How Urban Agriculture Can Address the Drought

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Revealing the Chinese Urban Village

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Child’s Play?

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