SWA landscape architects Climate Action Plan, US architecture studio news, CAP public realm design
SWA Landscape Architects Climate Action Plan News
Landscape Architecture, Planning and Urban Design targeting emissions reduction: Architectural Designers.
November 18, 2024
SWA unveils ambitious plan targeting 50% emissions reduction by 2030
As the largest landscape architecture firm in the U.S.—and the first to develop a Climate Action Plan of this kind—SWA has outlined a strategy to tackle both project and operational emissions in alignment with ASLA and IPCC goals.
Reintroducing a mosaic of intertidal wetlands to the Long Island City waterfront, Hunter’s Point South Park has become a model for urban flood risk reduction and blue-green infrastructure since its opening in 2018.
photo : David Lloyd/SWA
SWA Landscape Architects Climate Action Plan News
November 18, 2024—Today, SWA—the largest landscape architecture firm in the U.S.—released a far-reaching Climate Action Plan (CAP) outlining strategies targeting a 50% reduction in project emissions by 2030, in alignment with goals set out by the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA), the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and other AEC industry standards.
Martin Luther King Jr. Square:
photos © SWA
“The climate crisis is among the greatest challenges of the next century. It’s time for landscape architects to fully confront this, not just in rhetoric, but in tangible actions,” said Gerdo Aquino and David Thompson, Co-CEOs of SWA. “As a discipline, we need bold, science-based action to reduce the worst effects of climate change in our cities and landscapes—and we can have tremendous impact by collectively acting today through our design work and our decisions as a united industry.”
Milton Street Park:
Founded in 1957, SWA specializes in landscape architecture, urban design, and planning, with seven domestic offices in California, Texas, and New York, and one abroad in Shanghai. Since the firm’s establishment, the amount of atmospheric carbon has increased by over 450% annually, contributing to a suite of impacts building in frequency and intensity—sea-level rise, ocean acidification, mass species extinction, severe storms, drought, extreme heat, and the collapse of entire ecosystems and food chains.
Solar Roof at SWA Sausalito:
“As the closest discipline in AEC to the environmental sciences, landscape architects have an alarmingly close view of the climate crisis. In 2024, sea-level rise, extreme heat, drought, and intensifying storms aren’t ‘design problems’ to be solved—they’re the baseline conditions of a new reality,” said Sarah Fitzgerald, CAP Co-Author. “As landscape architects, the world demands more of us, and we have the tools to act. This plan may focus on one firm, but what we’re really saying is that a broad-front reorientation toward decarbonization and climate justice can be the norm, not the exception.”
Weaving 160 acres of resilient open space through central Houston, Buffalo Bayou Park offsets over 84,000 gallons of stormwater, sequesters 9 tons of atmospheric carbon, expands urban habitat, and has contributed to drastically improved health outcomes for tens of thousands of adjacent residents:
photo : Jonnu Singleton/SWA
The AEC sector currently accounts for a staggering 40% of annual global emissions. While landscapes and open spaces account for a proportionally smaller amount of these emissions than buildings, landscape architects bring a unique toolkit for climate action that has gone under-recognized, bringing decarbonization goals to bear at an extraordinary range of scales, from 4,000-acre parks to quarter-acre terraces. With a deep understanding of ecological systems and environmental principles, landscape architects can design projects that sequester carbon, mitigate heat islands, support biodiversity, buffer the effects of sea-level rise, stormwater, and groundwater flooding, and center climate justice through participatory design—enhancing the physical, social, and economic resilience of communities.
SWA Landscape Architects historic photo:
Targeting a 50% reduction in emissions by 2030, SWA plans on incorporating decarbonization design strategies and carbon accounting workflows throughout the firm’s project work. Through a benchmarking analysis, SWA’s growing Climate and Sustainability team is setting up a process to measure embodied and sequestered carbon across four project typologies, using retroactive and active project data to guide decision-making and track emissions reduction by category. Leveraging the SWA Guide to Decarbonize Design—a phase-by-phase toolkit developed by CAP Co-Author Mariana Ricker for her 2023 Patrick T. Curran Fellowship—design teams can incorporate a range of decarbonization best practices from the earliest stages of a project forward, including a critical focus on right-sizing spaces, prioritizing low-carbon materials, and greenlining details and specifications.
Hunter’s Point South Park:
While AEC firms have consistently reported that project emissions far outweigh the impact of operational emissions, SWA has additionally committed to measuring the impacts of our business practices. The Plan outlines important categories for reducing these emissions, including office-by-office strategies focused on enhancing energy efficiency, business travel, and commuting. The overarching aim is to build a “culture of practice” that empowers design teams to advance decarbonization goals and champion climate solutions within and outside the firm.
Golden Gate National Recreation Area:
The broader industry is undergoing a fundamental shift as decarbonization is increasingly recognized as a top priority by leading professional organizations and policymakers. The Urban Land Institute (ULI) highlights the path to net zero as one of its top mission priorities, a growing list of Architecture firms are signed on to Arch 2030, and engineers have established similar targets with MEP 2040 and SE 2050. CAP Co-Author Mariana Ricker emphasizes that “collaboration with all of these entities and partners is key to addressing the challenge of decarbonizing our built environment.”
While many architecture, engineering, and construction firms have developed Climate Action Plans, landscape architects joined the coalition with ASLA’s public release of a Climate Action Plan in 2022, co-authored by Sarah Fitzgerald. Additional resources followed, including a 2023 report on Decarbonizing Business Operations, which Fitzgerald and Anya Domlesky, SWA’s Director of Research, contributed to; and a recent 2024 guide on Decarbonizing the Design Process co-authored by Mariana Ricker. XL Lab, SWA’s dedicated research and innovation arm, has led several other projects related to climate adaptation and mitigation, including Playbook for the Pyrocene, a guide to wildfire-adaptive design authored by Jonah Susskind, Senior Research Associate at SWA.
SWA historic photo:
As the first CAP conceived by a major landscape architecture firm, SWA aims to lead by example and clearly demonstrate the place for landscape architects on the path to decarbonization.
Links:
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Previously on e-architect:
SWA Landscape Architects Design News
SWA Group News – recent selection from e-architect:
Zane Busbee rejoins SWA to co-lead Dallas studio
Master Plan for Irvine Great Park Project, Irvine, southern Orange County, CA, USA
Design: SWA Group with Kellenberg Studio
image courtesy of architects practice
Irvine Great Park master plan
Los Angeles-San Pedro Waterfront Connectivity Plan, L.A., Southern California, USA
Los Angeles-San Pedro Waterfront Connectivity Plan
Evelyn Avenue Workplace, City of Mountain View, CA
Architects: WRNS Studio ; Landscape Design: SWA Group
image courtesy of SWA Group
Evelyn Avenue Workplace, Mountain View
Bayfront Redevelopment Open Space Master Plan, Jersey City, NJ, USA
rendering courtesy SWA Group
Bayfront Redevelopment Master Plan in Jersey City
Expo 2020 Dubai Landscape Architecture and Urban Design, Dubai, UAE
photo : Jason O’Rear
Expo 2020 Dubai Landscape Architecture and Urban Design
SWA Group Recognized With Eleven ASLA 2021 Design Awards
photo : Jonnu Singleton/SWA
SWA Group Recognized With Eleven ASLA 2021 Design Awards
Nelson Mandela Park Master Plan, South Maashaven, Rotterdam, the Netherlands
Design: SWA/Balsley
rendering courtesy SWA/Balsley
Nelson Mandela Park Master Plan in South Maashaven
Walmart New Home Office Campus headquarters – Landscape Master Plan, Bentonville, Arkansas, USA
Design: Gensler, Walter P Moore and Arup, SWA Group
Rendering courtesy of SWA Group
San Jacinto Plaza, El Paso, Texas, United States of America
photo : Jonnu Singleton/SWA
Jeddah Tower, Kingdom City, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia – KSA – to be the world’s tallest building
Architect: Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture with SWA, landscape architecture
image from architect
Jeddah Tower in Saudi Arabia Skyscraper Landscape Architecture
Fuzhou Vanke City & Chongqing Dongyuan 1891, China
photo : David Lloyd
SWA Group landscape design project
More projects by SWA Landscape Architects online soon
Location: Los Angeles, CA, USA – and various locations around the world
Architectural Practice Information
About SWA
SWA is a global landscape architecture, planning, and urban design firm with eight independent studios across the U.S. and China. Founded in 1957, we were one of the first 100% employee-owned design firms in the U.S. For over 60 years, we’ve designed culturally defining landscapes across the globe. Today, our designers are shaping the future of cities, environments, and infrastructure at all scales.
www.swagroup.com
@swagroup
Video:
About Us by SWA from SWA Group on Vimeo.
Los Angeles Architecture
LA Architectural Projects + Key New Property Designs, alphabetical:
Los Angeles Architecture Links – chronological list
Los Angeles Architecture Walking Tours
Los Angeles Architecture Designs
Ara Residence, Atherton, California, USA
Design: Swatt | Miers Architects ; Landscape Architect: SWA Group
photograph : Russell Abraham Photography
California house with landscape design by SWA Group
Additions / photos for theSWA Landscape Architects Climate Action Plan News page welcome