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Draft:SWT Design

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SWT Design
TypePrivate
IndustryLandscape architecture, urban design, planning
Founded1995; 31 years ago (1995)
Headquarters
St. Louis, Missouri
,
United States
Key people
Ted Spaid, Jim Wolterman, Susan Trautman (co-founders)
Websiteswtdesign.com

SWT Design is an American landscape architecture and planning firm headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri. Founded in 1995, the firm has designed parks, streetscapes, and public spaces primarily in the Midwestern United States, including projects at the Saint Louis Zoo, Forest Park, MOmentum Bike Park, and the Cortex Innovation Community.[1][2][3]

History

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SWT Design was founded in 1995 by landscape architects Ted Spaid, Jim Wolterman, and Susan Trautman; Spaid and Wolterman had both previously worked at HOK.[2][4][5][6] The firm opened a second studio in Kansas City, Missouri, in 2016.[7] Co-founders Wolterman and Spaid were each elected to the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) Council of Fellows, one of the organization's highest honors—Wolterman in 2012 and Spaid in 2018.[6][7]

The firm's campus in St. Louis, an adaptive reuse of a Victorian-era building, exhibits many sustainable practices and is recognized by the Sustainable Sites Initiative.[8] In 2012, the campus became Missouri's second SITES-certified landscape, earning two of four stars for features such as a native-planted green roof, rainwater catchment, and permeable hardscapes.[9]

Work

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SWT Design works on projects across many markets, including public parks and recreation, civic and cultural spaces, university campuses, healthcare, and commercial and hospitality, with an emphasis on sustainable, community-focused places.[2][5] Beyond planting design, the firm's work encompasses site selection, site design, civil engineering, planning, multi-modal transportation, conservation, outdoor lighting, and the integration of public art.[5][2] Under Spaid's leadership the firm has worked in communities across the United States.[7]

Sectors

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Parks and Recreation

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Parks and recreation is a core focus of the firm's practice.[2] SWT Design designed new basketball courts in Tower Grove Park, a park listed on the National Register of Historic Places, which required the design to respect the park's Victorian historic context.[1] SWT Design also designed Brentwood Park in Brentwood, Missouri, a 2.5-acre playscape built on a former quarry that opened in April 2024 with ziplines, climbing walls, and multilevel play structures intended to accommodate a range of ages and abilities.[4]

In 2023, the St. Charles County parks department selected SWT Design from among seven proposals to design the 126-acre Spring Bend Park and the 12-acre Heritage Park, in a design and consulting contract of $632,600.[10] By that time the firm had worked on more than 25 park projects in the greater St. Louis area, including Veterans Tribute Park, O'Day Park in O'Fallon, Missouri, and the Jaycee Park Discovery Inclusive Playground in St. Charles, Missouri.[10] Earlier projects in the county include the master plan for the 582-acre Indian Camp Creek Park, which opened in 2006, and, as prime consultant, the Dardenne Creek Greenway.[5]

The firm also prepared the master plan for Shaw Park in Clayton, Missouri, and designed the first phase of its implementation, including the Chapman Plaza entry and a cascading water feature, which the city's Architectural Review Board reviewed in 2016.[11]

SWT Design served as landscape architect for the roughly $7.4 million expansion of the municipal aquatic park in Republic, Missouri, rebranded The Rush, which doubled the facility and added a 575-foot lazy river before reopening in 2025.[12][13]

In the Kansas City area, SWT Design developed a base plan and, with SFS Architecture, is helping the city of Belton, Missouri design a 69-acre arboretum on land donated by longtime resident Jack Dryden; the roughly $20 million project is projected for completion in 2027 or 2028.[14] The firm was also among the landscape architects on a team led by Wilson & Company, with Hoxie Collective and Fresco Marketing, that conducted Kansas City's Southwest Boulevard Transportation Study, a Planning for Sustainable Places effort analyzing the corridor for mobility, stormwater, and streetscape improvements.[15]

The firm's portfolio also includes planning and design work for Missouri's newest state park, Echo Bluff, completed in 2015.[7]

Civic and Cultural

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SWT Design's work at the Saint Louis Art Museum included the restoration of Art Hill, which narrowed Fine Arts Drive into a granite-paved terrace around the statue of Louis IX.[16] The firm's other St. Louis–area work includes projects at the Saint Louis Zoo, among them the River's Edge habitat and the restoration of the 1904 World's Fair Flight Cage.[1][5][6] SWT Design was also part of the design team, with Arcturis and Gyo Obata, for the Saint Louis Science Center's $7 million GROW exhibit, an outdoor gallery on the science of food and agriculture that opened in 2016 and received a 2017 Building St. Louis award.[17] SWT Design designed the Webster Groves Sculpture Garden in Webster Groves, Missouri, developed in 2013 and opened in 2014 on two triangular green spaces at West Kirkham and North Gore avenues.[1][18] The garden, which displays eight sculptures including two works by Ernest Trova, was later renamed the Gerry Welch Sculpture Garden in honor of the city's longest-serving mayor.[18]

Campuses and Healthcare

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On the campus of Washington University in St. Louis, SWT Design designed Bryan Hall / Millstone Plaza, which serves as a north gateway to the campus, and prepared the university's campus tree master plan.[19][20] The firm also designed the STEM Building and Gardens at MICDS, an outdoor teaching landscape with native plantings and a rainwater-fed water feature.[19] In healthcare, SWT Design planned and designed Activity Canyon, an accessible outdoor therapeutic playground at Ranken Jordan Pediatric Bridge Hospital in Maryland Heights, Missouri, which opened in 2021.[21] The firm earlier designed the "Together We Play" all-inclusive playground at St. Louis Children's Hospital, which is documented by the Therapeutic Landscapes Network.[22] In the Branson area, the firm was the landscape architect for the $36 million Table Rock Career Center, a technical education facility built for the Reeds Spring School District that opened in 2024.[23]

Commercial and Hospitality

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SWT Design provided landscape and hardscape design for The Meadows at Lake St. Louis, a $33 million lifestyle center that opened in 2008, and designed the Central Green rooftop garden at Westport Plaza in Maryland Heights, Missouri.[24][25][26] In 2019, the city of Lake Saint Louis engaged the firm to develop a concept plan for an urban park within The Meadows modeled on St. Louis's Citygarden.[27] The firm was the landscape architect for the AC Hotel by Marriott in Clayton, Missouri, an 11-story, 207-room hotel.[28] Near Branson, SWT Design designed the native landscapes and site features for Indian Creek Lodge, a Bluegreen Wilderness Club resort at Big Cedar Lodge along Table Rock Lake, completed in 2010.[29] SWT Design also served as landscape architect for two Bass Pro Shops retail stores recognized in the ISP/VM+SD International Store Design Competition: the Outdoor World superstore in Denver and the Sportsman's Center in Miami.[30][31]

Notable projects

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Cortex Commons

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SWT Design was the lead landscape architect for Cortex Commons, an 8-acre central open space in the Cortex Innovation Community in St. Louis, completed in 2014 on a former brownfield site with a budget of $10 million.[32] The project replaced a planned conventional turf stormwater basin with biofiltration areas, rain gardens, and pervious paving, exceeding district stormwater storage requirements by 21 percent.[32] The Landscape Architecture Foundation published a case study of the project's environmental, social, and economic performance in 2023.[32]

West Florissant Avenue Great Streets Master Plan

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St. Louis County chose SWT Design to further develop a master plan for the West Florissant Avenue corridor.[33] The plan proposed increasing green space along the corridor by 70 percent, reducing impervious surfaces by 34 percent, and expanding tree canopy coverage, alongside pedestrian, bicycle, and transit improvements.[33] The plan was featured by the American Society of Landscape Architects as a climate action case study.[33]

Forest Park

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SWT Design, along with HOK, H3 Studio, and Oehme, van Sweden & Associates, was involved in implementing the updated master plan for Forest Park beginning in 2004, work that daylighted the once-buried River des Peres waterway and rehabilitated areas of the park including Pagoda Circle.[34] The firm later designed the park's first basketball courts.[1] SWT Design served as the lead design firm for the park's East Waterways project, completed in 2025, which restored the waterway connection across the park's east side and added an accessible boardwalk at Jefferson Lake, a pedestrian bridge, and an education pavilion at Bowl Lake.[35]

Novus International Headquarters

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SWT Design was the lead landscape architect for the Novus International headquarters campus in St. Charles County, a nine-acre site that in 2012 became one of the first three projects certified under the Sustainable Sites Initiative and the only one of the three to receive a three-star rating.[9][36]

MOmentum Bike Park

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SWT Design completed the design and engineering plans for MOmentum Bike Park in Joplin, Missouri, a 95-acre municipal bike park that opened in November 2025 and is the largest municipal bike park in the state.[37][3] The park received a 2026 Innovation Award from the Missouri Municipal League, and SWT Design was separately recognized for its design of the park.[3]

Makoce Food Systems District

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In 2023, SWT Design served as landscape architect on a team led by Hoxie Collective and Substance Architecture that produced a vision plan for the Makoce Food Systems District, a roughly 24-acre Indigenous agriculture and food-systems development on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota for the Lakota-led nonprofit Makoce Agriculture Development.[38][39] The vision plan received 2024 Honor Awards in planning and analysis from the Prairie Gateway and Iowa chapters of the American Society of Landscape Architects.[38][39][40][41]

Gliún

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On a related 2022 project, SWT Design worked with Hoxie Collective and Substance Architecture on a vision plan for Gliún, a planned Indigenous tiny-house community and outreach center for houseless Indigenous people near Rapid City, South Dakota, developed for the NDN Collective; the plan received a 2024 Award of Excellence in planning and analysis from the Central States Region of the American Society of Landscape Architects.[42]

Recognition

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SWT Design has received design and planning awards from professional organizations at the regional and national level.[5][29] SWT Design received three Merit Awards in the Design - Constructed Projects category from the St. Louis chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects in its 2020-2021 awards, for the O'Day Park Masterplan and Implementation, the MICDS STEM Building and Gardens, and Bryan Hall / Millstone Plaza.[19] Cortex Commons received an ASLA St. Louis Chapter Merit Award in 2016.[32]

The ASLA Central States region recognized the firm's Novus International global headquarters project with professional honor and stewardship awards in 2012,[43] its Washington University Tree Master Plan with a professional merit award in planning and analysis in 2014,[20] and its Audubon Center at the Riverlands project with an award of excellence in the built design category in 2017.[44] At the 2011 ASLA Central States Conference, the firm received honor awards for the Des Peres Park Lake improvement project and its own design campus, and a merit award for Indian Creek Lodge at Big Cedar.[29] The firm's plan for the Tower Grove Connector received the 2023 Award for Outstanding Plan Making from the St. Louis Metro Section of the American Planning Association.[45]

References

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  1. 1 2 3 4 5 Norfleet, Miya (July 11, 2023). "Meet the man who designed St. Louis' best green spaces". St. Louis Public Radio. Retrieved June 10, 2026.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 "Profile". SWT Design. Retrieved June 10, 2026.
  3. 1 2 3 Woodin, Debby (May 13, 2026). "MOmentum Bike Park wins state award". The Joplin Globe. Retrieved June 12, 2026.
  4. 1 2 Norfleet, Miya (April 10, 2024). "Meet the architect behind Brentwood's enormous new playground". St. Louis Public Radio. Retrieved June 10, 2026.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Johnson, Julia M. (August 6, 2006). "Going for the green". St. Louis Business Journal. Retrieved June 12, 2026.
  6. 1 2 3 Vespereny, Cynthia (November 2, 2012). "St. Louis Character: Jim Wolterman". St. Louis Business Journal. Retrieved June 12, 2026.
  7. 1 2 3 4 "St. Louis-based Planning and Design Firm Principal Receives National Recognition" (Press release). November 2018. Retrieved June 10, 2026 – via St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
  8. ↑ "SWT Design Campus". Sustainable Sites Initiative. Retrieved June 10, 2026.
  9. 1 2 Russell, Stefene (September 20, 2012). "Permeable Parking Lots and Wildflower Roofs: What Makes Landscaping Sustainable?". St. Louis Magazine. Retrieved June 10, 2026.
  10. 1 2 "Spring Bend, Heritage parks given go-ahead for design and development". Mid Rivers Newsmagazine. August 2023. Retrieved June 10, 2026.
  11. ↑ Ihnen, Alex (April 12, 2016). "Design for Big Changes for Clayton's Shaw Park Revealed". NextSTL. Retrieved June 10, 2026.
  12. ↑ "Republic debuting $7M expansion to aquatic park". Springfield Business Journal. May 2025. Retrieved June 12, 2026.
  13. ↑ "Republic Aquatic Center expansion". Springfield Business Journal. Retrieved June 12, 2026.
  14. ↑ Parker, Reece (July 31, 2024). "A longtime Belton resident and retired pharmacist donated 69 acres of land to be turned into an arboretum". Kansas City Magazine. Retrieved June 12, 2026.
  15. ↑ "Southwest Boulevard Improvements (Westside)". City of Kansas City, Missouri. Retrieved June 12, 2026.
  16. ↑ "Art Hill at Saint Louis Art Museum". SWT Design. Retrieved June 10, 2026.
  17. ↑ Rizvic, Veneta (September 21, 2017). "Saint Louis Science Center's GROW exhibit attracts 75,000 visitors a month". St. Louis Business Journal. Retrieved June 12, 2026.
  18. 1 2 "Gerry Welch Sculpture Garden". Webster-Kirkwood Times. October 2025. Retrieved June 10, 2026.
  19. 1 2 3 "St. Louis ASLA Awards 2020-2021". American Society of Landscape Architects, St. Louis Chapter. Retrieved June 10, 2026.
  20. 1 2 "Washington University Tree Master Plan - SWT". ASLA Central States. 2014. Retrieved June 10, 2026.
  21. ↑ "Ranken Jordan Opens Magical Outdoor Therapeutic Playground". Ranken Jordan Pediatric Bridge Hospital. May 25, 2021. Retrieved June 12, 2026.
  22. ↑ "Gardens in Healthcare and Related Facilities". Therapeutic Landscapes Network. Retrieved June 12, 2026.
  23. ↑ "Table Rock Career Center". Springfield Business Journal. Retrieved June 12, 2026.
  24. ↑ "The Meadows at Lake St. Louis". SWT Design. Retrieved June 12, 2026.
  25. ↑ Stuenkel, Gil (August 3, 2008). "Lake Saint Louis prepares to open $33 million center". St. Louis Business Journal. Retrieved June 12, 2026.
  26. ↑ "Westport Plaza Central Green Roof Garden Lawn". SWT Design. Retrieved June 12, 2026.
  27. ↑ "The Meadows is Lake Saint Louis' new downtown". Mid Rivers Newsmagazine. July 9, 2019. Retrieved June 12, 2026.
  28. ↑ Kukuljan, Steph (January 16, 2019). "Clayton hotel moves forward with 'destination' rooftop bar". St. Louis Business Journal. Retrieved June 12, 2026.
  29. 1 2 3 "SWT Design takes home three awards". Lawn & Landscape. June 6, 2011. Retrieved June 12, 2026.
  30. ↑ "Bass Pro Shops Outdoor World". Visual Merchandising and Store Design. February 22, 2007. Retrieved June 12, 2026.
  31. ↑ "Bass Pro Shops Sportsman's Center". Visual Merchandising and Store Design. January 24, 2008. Retrieved June 12, 2026.
  32. 1 2 3 4 Shaw, Dan; Flauta, Christine (2023). "Cortex Commons". Landscape Performance Series. Landscape Architecture Foundation. doi:10.31353/cs1920. Retrieved June 10, 2026.
  33. 1 2 3 "West Florissant Avenue Great Streets Master Plan". American Society of Landscape Architects. Retrieved June 10, 2026.
  34. ↑ "Forest Park - MO". The Cultural Landscape Foundation. Retrieved June 10, 2026.
  35. ↑ Adams, Emily (February 14, 2025). "Forest Park East is in the process of a massive facelift". St. Louis Magazine. Retrieved June 10, 2026.
  36. ↑ "First Projects Certified by SITES" (Press release). United States Botanic Garden. January 25, 2012. Retrieved June 12, 2026.
  37. ↑ "About – MOmentum Bike Park". City of Joplin Parks & Recreation. Retrieved June 12, 2026.
  38. 1 2 "Makoce Food Systems District Vision Plan". Substance Architecture. Retrieved June 12, 2026.
  39. 1 2 "Makoce Food Systems District". Hoxie Collective. Retrieved June 12, 2026.
  40. ↑ "2024 PGASLA Awards". Prairie Gateway Chapter, American Society of Landscape Architects. 2024. Retrieved June 12, 2026.
  41. ↑ "2024 Professional and Student Awards". Iowa Chapter, American Society of Landscape Architects. 2024. Retrieved June 12, 2026.
  42. ↑ "Gliún Tiny House Community and Outreach Center Vision Plan". Substance Architecture. Retrieved June 12, 2026.
  43. ↑ "Novus International Global Headquarters - SWT Design". ASLA Central States. 2012. Retrieved June 10, 2026.
  44. ↑ "Audubon Center at the Riverlands - SWT". ASLA Central States. 2017. Retrieved June 10, 2026.
  45. ↑ "Awards – St. Louis Metro Section". American Planning Association, Missouri Chapter. Retrieved June 12, 2026.
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