The mission of HDR's Community Planning & Urban Design staff is simple, yet comprehensive. HDR strives to create, and recreate, true communities; places where people can live, work, play and carry out all aspects of their lives.
HDR approaches each project as a unique opportunity, creating collaborative teams that blend expertise in the areas of Community, Mobility and Environment. The efforts of our teams are grounded in the belief that the built environment and the natural environment are interrelated. To be truly successful, communities must equitably integrate function, social, economic and environmental considerations into unified solutions. In achieving these goals, we look to create communities that have a unique and distinctive sense of place that truly reflect their history, their location and their inhabitants.
Brochure |
» | Community Planning + Urban Design
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HDR emphasizes and specializes in urban redevelopment and strives to produce plans and designs that help revitalize traditional urban centers and older neighborhoods, incorporate a diverse mix of uses and pedestrian activity, expand accessibility and ultimately achieve a higher level of urbanism.
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Town Planning & Urban Design
HDR specializes in planning downtowns, main streets, neighborhoods, and transit-oriented development for both public and private clients in a variety of communities. Town planning projects vary from the design of new neighborhoods based on the tenets of Traditional Neighborhood Development (TND), to the restoration and rehabilitation of downtowns and older urban neighborhoods, to the revitalization of suburban strips as pedestrian-oriented main streets. Projects range in size from a few acres to several hundred acres, and incorporate vibrant and human-scaled public spaces, including streets, plazas, parks, and pedestrian paths.
Corridor Planning & Streetscape Design
Streets and roads are among the most prominent public spaces in our communities. In many instances, however, the design of these key civic areas is the unintentional focus on vehicular traffic flow and the ease of automotive access. HDR’s approach to streets and roads and their planning and design is to optimize functional and formal qualities, and expand the concept of mobility to include not only cars, but transit, bicycles and pedestrians. Our approach to corridor planning encompasses not only the official Right-of-Way, but also all abutting and adjacent land uses, often to depths of a ¼ mile on either side of the ROW. We look to create solutions that enhance the utility of the corridor for mobility and its physical character and sense of place.
Design Codes & Guidelines
The weaknesses of 20th century use-based Euclidian zoning have become increasingly evident, particularly when applied to problems of urban redevelopment. Our planning and urban design staff specializes in the creation and application of form-based codes to help communities insure appropriate and desirable urban forms and characteristics with the flexibility to accommodate a wide range of short- and long-term economic functions. HDR staff also specializes in the creation and application of urban design guidelines that provide direction for architects, developers, builders, officials and members of the public. We maintain extensive involvement with clients and communities, using highly interactive and visual process to solicit and verify desirable design outcomes.
Redevelopment Consulting
The challenge of the 21st century is the restoration, redevelopment and revitalization of the urban and suburban communities, systems and places that were created over the past 150 years. Our planning and urban design staff specializes in helping communities redevelop, revitalize and reinvent themselves. We emphasize all elements of a sustainable approach: natural systems, built form, social fabric and economic viability. Our staff collaborates closely with other specialists within HDR with expertise in economic development, financial analysis, brownfields remediation, multi-modal transportation planning, environmental restoration, public-private partnerships, historic preservation and more.
Community Participation
HDR’s award-winning planning and facilitation skills are powerful tools that help achieve agreement between disparate community interests and are sensitive to both political and market realities. Our staff has expertise in visioning, SWOT analyses, visual preference analyses, and other forms of public involvement techniques. HDR specializes in the public involvement process know as the charrette that has emerged as an alternative to conventional planning and approval methods. The charrette process helps build consensus on the difficult issues facing a community and overcome disagreement through a supportive planning process. The success of an HDR Charrette is based on our ability to both collaboratively create and illustrate designs that function at multiple scales, building understanding and confidence in a development scheme.
Environmental Design
All communities include a mixture of the built environment and the natural environment. Often, the key characteristics of a community, and the key elements that differentiate one community from another, are the specific aspects of the interplay between buildings and open space. The planning and design of open space and natural systems are key challenges in the creation of successful communities. HDR approaches the planning and design of the built and natural environment as an integrated process, seamlessly weaving these two realms into an integrated whole. Our staff includes experts in park planning, recreational design, open space design, bikeways, trails, corridors, habitats and other elements of the urban ecosystem.
Site Development
For many, the completion of a document or drawings signifies the end of the planning process. For us, the words and drawings are vehicles for informing the desired physical development or redevelopment. To help bring clients closer to such development, staff includes experts in site planning, design and development, civil engineering, landscape architects, architects and other licensed professionals, with links to surveyors, appraisers, real estate brokers in other divisions of HDR. These staff members assist clients by taking plans and designs through the technical design process, to the point of preparing construction-ready documents and specifications. Areas of specialization include site preparation, roadway design, streetscape design, landscape design, drainage, parking and related areas.