We are change agents of our environment. We are stewards of the world we live in. As designers, planners, and dreamers, we are responsible for planning a better future. We plan and design resilient, relevant, thriving places rooted in their social and cultural legacy.
We share the strength of more than 50 years of professional success in planning, urban and architectural design, zoning, comprehensive planning, development, and feasibility. We believe in true collaboration. We design contextual cities, towns, and neighborhoods born from their inherent strengths, creating lasting, resilient value. We create places for people.
We are about place. Our multidisciplinary body of work is driven by the genius of a place, or the true nature of place: the “genius loci.” We believe that understanding a place and its context is critical in planning for the future. Our practice is rooted in a tradition of rigorous research, fieldwork, and analysis to understand a community’s underlying DNA. We maintain that place-driven design is the only path toward integration, equity, and a resilient future.
We are about people. Inclusivity is at the core of our studio’s philosophy. We believe that listening to stakeholders and understanding their vision is the only way to truly achieve a successful plan. Grand visions must be community-driven to be implementable, practical, and achievable. As planning and design professionals, we are committed to creating better places for people.
We are about new approaches. Our studio is constantly exploring the process of planning and design. We love a challenge, and we thrive on complexity. We take the path less traveled, and we forge the way by walking it. We start from the premise that many iterations must be explored to find the right solution. We believe that innovation is achieved through a deep understanding of a problem and the willingness to take risks to solve it.
We are about clarity. A root cause of conflict is misunderstanding and confusion. We understand that planning, zoning, development, and preservation can be complex and elusive to explain. We believe a picture, illustration, or diagram is worth a thousand words. We are experts in graphic communication. We provide the tools for communities to express their vision and work together towards a shared goal.
We make places better through design. Our cities, towns, and rural communities face serious challenges that require thoughtful solutions. To us, the design process is a transcendent exercise. We seek elegant solutions to complex problems. We are committed to making communities where people can thrive. We love what we do. We are Plusurbia.
Our team shares the strength of more than 50 years of diverse professional success; our multidisciplinary studio combines expertise to address each project through unique and innovative processes.
Our studio understands that regulatory frameworks are the backbone of every thriving environment. From protecting our most precious spaces to developing our densest cities, good planning provides predictability and ensures the implementation of the community’s vision. We are fluent in both traditional text-based and form-based codes, and we employ both methods with the same goal: making better places.
Regulatory projects
In an age of rapid change and mounting pressures for every city, it’s more important than ever to have a plan that helps communities navigate the challenges ahead. Our firm strives to stay ahead of the curve by calibrating the approach to each project addressing specific challenges, and reaching objectives in innovative ways. The studio combines design, planning, and engineering to approach planning projects comprehensively.
Our team has authored Comprehensive Plans and citywide zoning frameworks that encourage reinvestment and channel development pressures to promote livable and resilient places.
Planning projects
Urban design is the art and science of placemaking. Our team arranges and designs places and spaces from regions and cities to block structures achieving optimal efficiency and experiential value. We ensure the principles of good city building: livability, sustainability, and accessibility are at the core of every project using best practices and constantly innovating our approach based on environmental, social, and cultural precepts.
Urban Design projects
Our studio focuses on improving walkability and connectivity across neighborhoods, cities, and regions. We believe our built environment will remain inhospitable and out of scale unless we design for people.
We have designed our cities based on car speeds and lane widths for far too long. We must make room for alternative mobility modes and prioritize pedestrian safety. We advocate for new technologies and integrated land use patterns that encourage complete neighborhoods designed around people. We plan for Transit Oriented Developments, corridors, and Transit districts by assessing conditions and proposing multimodal solutions.
Mobility projects
Our designers approach architecture and building design as part of our urban design and planning disciplines. We analyze traditional building forms to understand their value and adapt it to today’s needs. We believe that a good building serves not only the people that use it but also the community at large. As such, each building has a responsibility to the public realm and must be integral to the health of a city.
At Plusurbia, we are passionate about buildings that shape the urban environment in a resilient and sustainable manner.
Strong communities understand their history and learn from it. A deep appreciation of the history of a place can result in respectful and informed decision-making for the future. Historic places serve as physical lessons about design, construction, policy, and the entire breadth of the human experience, from tragedy to triumph.
We integrate the discipline of traditional historic preservation with best practices in urban planning, zoning, and urban design to better protect communities and landmarks and integrate them into a holistic vision for a neighborhood, city, or region. Our historic preservation services include historic resource surveys, cultural resource assessment surveys, designation reports, National Register nominations, historic neighborhood master plans, zoning codes, and pattern books.
Historic Preservation projectsOur diverse team creates inspired design, collaborative approaches, and innovative solutions to shape vibrant, efficient, adaptable, and sustainable places of lasting cultural identity end experiential value.