Sasaki, Walker and Associates was founded in 1957 in Watertown, Massachusetts, by Hideo Sasaki and Peter Walker. This association was an outgrowth of a collaboration that began when Sasaki was chair of the Landscape Architecture program at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design. In 1959 Walker opened a regional office in San Francisco and developed the firm’s west coast practice. Significant projects of the 1960s include Foothill College, Fashion Island, and the Weyerhaeuser Headquarters. In the 1970s the firm name changed to the SWA Group as the firm moved to larger scale master planning projects, including the Golden Gate National Recreational Area, and collaborated with architectural firms including I.M. Pei, Phillip Johnson, and Charles Moore. In 1983 Walker left the firm and in 1988 Kalvin Platt became the CEO. With multiple offices in the United States and abroad, the SWA Group is known for their award-winning work in the fields of landscape architecture, planning, and urban design.