SWA/Balsley

Thomas Balsley Associates is an award-winning design firm providing landscape architecture, site planning, and urban design services throughout the United States and abroad. Over 35 years of experience have produced projects of virtually every size and type ranging from master plans to small urban spaces and from feasibility planning studies to completed urban parks, waterfronts, corporate, commercial, institutional, residential, and recreational landscapes. The firm’s well-earned international reputation is built on a refreshing approach to design and client management in which creativity and innovation are fused with the realities of budget and schedules in a client/designer collaboration. The firm’s commitment to design excellence extends beyond the conventional role of landscape architects as designers or technicians and into the public realm of urban placemaking for 21st century culture and environmental stewardship. The result is an impressive portfolio of notable and published urban landscapes and plazas such as Leeum Museum in Seoul, World Trade Center in Osaka, Gate City, J-City, and Kasumagaseki Plazas in Tokyo, Pacific Design Center in Los Angeles, Main Street Garden Park in Dallas, Riverside Park South and Gantry Plaza State Park in New York, and Curtis Hixon Park in Florida. Current waterfront and urban park commissions include: • Candlestick Point Park/Hunter’s Point Shipyard - San Francisco, CA, USA • Busan Lotte World - Busan, Korea • Busan Waterfront Master Plan - Busan, South Korea • DigitalMediaCenterTower - Seoul, South Korea • St. Louis Arch Grounds Connector - St. Louis, MO, USA In New York City alone, Thomas Balsley Associates has designed more than 100 large and small public spaces including award winning projects such as Capitol Plaza, Chelsea Waterside Park, and Peggy Rockefeller Plaza to name a few. In an unexpected gesture of recognition for Mr. Balsley’s contribution to New York City public realm, a park he designed on 57th Street was renamed Balsley Park. Thomas Balsley Associates’ work has also appeared in many national and international publications and media including the BBC documentary “Around the world in 80 Gardens,”ELA of Korea, New York Times, New York Times Magazine, Landscape Architecture Magazine, Metropolis, Architectural Record, Sculpture Magazine, Abitare, Arredo, International Design, ULI Urban Land, Places, Chinese Architect, and Japan Landscape. Spacemaker Press devoted a monograph to Thomas Balsley’s work, entitled “Thomas Balsley:The Urban Landscape.” Every year brings international recognition in the form of awards and citations from professional and civic organizations.