The American Society of Landscape Architects awarded their top 2003 national design accolade to the Dallas office of the SWA Group for their work on the Westlake Corporate Campus in Westlake, Tex. ASLA recognized the campus as a “leading example of retreat-like working environments with special emphasis on exterior space.” The design takes its cues from the client’s notion that because people spend so much time at work, they should enjoy the same kind of refreshing, natural environment that they typically look forward to “getting away to” on the weekends.

SWA provided site planning and full landscape architecture services for the 309-acre campus serving one the nation’s leading mutual fund companies. The site is part active ranchland and part open prairie, with patches of wetlands. The design focused on retaining and enhancing the natural beauty of the site consistent with its historic North Texas context and the client’s desire to provide an outdoor-oriented workplace for its employees.

The landscape design incorporates the site’s natural savannah and rolling terrain into a setting for the 650,000-square-foot office building and a five-story parking structure for 2,700 cars, designed by the Dallas office of HKS. The building’s rear façade overlooks wildflower meadows created with site fill and planted to appear natural and screen future development beyond its edges. An entry drive preserves the existing forest and integrates new planting for seasonal color. The firm planted 1,000 new trees to establish the next generation of forest on site.

The project met and exceeded all development standards mandated by the town and has become their model for future development. Of the project, managing principal and lead designer David Thompson says, “In many ways the success of the solution lies in blending the extensive needs of a corporation into a subtle and sensitive regional landscape. Ecology, historical context, and development coexist in a very symbiotic relationship.”

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