Placemaking for Livable Cities
Our role in placemaking and placekeeping is empowering community members with design and planning tools that give them agency over their shared spaces. Through site planning, land use specifications and scenarios, zoning analysis, and public realm strategy development we aim to create successful implementation pathways. These tools help elicit the genius of community members, especially those who are often unrepresented in public space. We know that the places people most enjoy emerge out of the natural environment and local culture. Successful placemaking restores local ecologies and natural water systems, celebrates local history and addresses shared trauma with reflection and resilience.
New York City Urban Design Principles, 2015-2017
While working for the NYC Department of City Planning, Thad and Jeff led a process to create the city’s first ever urban design principles, project protocols and training curricula for city planners. The process of creating these principles involved extensive internal and external listening, and careful balance of institutional values and external expectation.
