Question 5

Q: Your ability to bridge the gap between imagination and reality is a distinctive trait. How do you ensure that visionary ideas are not only inspiring but also practical and feasible within the constraints of urban development?

A: If a master plan for a development is not attractive to the market, it doesn’t get built. If a master plan is market relevant, but not supported by the community, it doesn’t get built. To prepare a master plan that does get built, it must be informed by both of these forces. This often involves meaningful community outreach, and market research, to understand how the needs of both can be realized by the design. In the case of the SCS Master Plan in Dublin, CA, our team both listened, and shared with the community the opportunities and constraints of development. We were able to visualize for them the trade-offs between the generation of profit, and the generation of community benefits. Through this process we were able to help them understand, within the constraints of financial feasibility, what their choices actually were, and hear from them which were most important. Through that process we were able to integrate their feedback into a design that presented an acceptable risk to the developer, and delivered the right combination of amenities the community needed.