The Ward Village Gateway Towers in Honolulu, Hawaii define the center of a sustainable 60-acre coastal development located in the city’s Kaka’ako district.

VISUALHOUSE collaborated on this ambitious project with Richard Meier and Partners and The Howard Hughes Corporation to create CG Imagery and Film + Animation.

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The nuanced plan embraces the extraordinary site’s rich cultural history and engages its breathtaking natural surroundings. The project’s distinctive architecture, publicly accessible landscape and diverse amenities will activate a vibrant new civic center in the heart of Honolulu and significantly enhance the region’s emerging skyline.

On a conceptual level, the Gateway Towers site plan is influenced by the historical proportions of the site’s former salt ponds and saltpan grids. Another link to the past will be the revitalization of the area’s once vital, but long-hidden, natural spring waterway, which will be augmented to flow through the project’s new, publicly accessible estuary located in a one-acre outdoor room defined by the Gateway Towers and the adjacent marina.

This project has so many scales of consideration – from the scale of the city In Honolulu, the quality of daylight is heightened by the dynamic patterns of shade and shadow from clouds driven by trade winds. This project creates timeless waterfront homes that capture the quality of place and light unique to this idyllic setting.