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Our Brand
our brand
“Design that holds Neighborhood Fabric[K] together”
LOCATING THE missing middle
The Transect. A gradient classification system of the built environment that orders elements of urbanism from rural to urban. Developed by Andres Duany of Duany Plater-Zyberk & Co. Image from cnu.org
Classifying a project’s contextual environment is critical to defining the types of urban patterns, configurations, orientations, buildings and infrastructural elements that must be used to sustainably support it. Concurrently, we focus on interjecting Missing Middle housing and commercial building types to help fill the physical and economic gaps that persist in today’s neighborhoods.
Similar to The Transect, this diagram classifies types of housing on a gradient from single family to high rise apartments. Highlighted is the ‘Missing Middle’, historical housing types that today have been made illegal through zoning policy or falsely labeled as neighborhood depreciators in many American cities. The ‘Missing Middle’ also applies to commercial buildings. Image by Opticos Design.
INCREMENTAL development
Illustrative diagram of Incremental Housing types that can come one after the other, exist on the same block, and be reorganized. Drawn by Michael Thompson of Thompson Placemaking during the Flint, MI Design Charrette.
Illustrative diagram of Incremental Retail Types. In order to grow a business it is typical prudent to keep expense low. These small scale incremental types help do just that for local small businesses. Drawn by Michael Thompson of Thompson Placemaking during the Flint, MI Design Charrette.
We operate on the premise that cities and towns should grow & compress the same as they have for millennia - incrementally. Beloved places the world over that have successfully weathered economic and political forces over thousands of years all began as small communities and grew systematically into larger ones. This is not by accident but by design & necessity. The thesis here is simple. A community should be able to sustainable support itself proportionate to the level of its wealth & economy. Once stabilized and wealth grows, the community can expand to the next rung of growth and then re-stabilize once again. The same occurs if the community has to downsize. This principle applies at the individual level as well. Whereas a family typically grows in size over time and proportionate to its wealth. To support this type of incrementalism we specialize in residential and commercial building types that are founded in precedent and have the ability to morph with time, based on economics and need. We call this “Grow as you Go”.
small scale & people-centric
