Urbanism
From Transit Oriented Design Guidelines to Community plans, we gear our approach to respond to local context, history, ecology, market reality and public desire. Working collaboratively with clients and communities, our unique process utilizes graphic communication to understand and analyze complex urban situations, explore possible scenarios, propose creative design solutions, and ultimately build clear design narratives that communicate with broad audiences. We also help clients and community groups identify partners and resources that enable projects to move forward.
Our urban design portfolio
East Liberty Transit Center
Team: Studio for Spatial Practice, The Design Alliance, Clear Story, CDM Smith, Sasaki, SAI
Client: Eastside Limited Partnership III
Location: Pittsburgh, PA
Date: 2011 - 2016
Awards: Transportation Project of the Year, Engineers’ Society of Western PA
The East Liberty Transit Center project completely reconfigured an existing bus rapid-transit station on the Martin Luther King Jr. East Busway. The project includes rebuilt bus platforms, a new pedestrian bridge and entry plaza, a bike parking facility, and close integration with adjacent mixed-use development. The existing station, opened in 1983, was surrounded by automobile-oriented infrastructure and dominated by an underutilized Busway access ramp. The new design converted the ramp into a new entry plaza with a landscaped path to the station platforms. The project also relocated and consolidated the station pedestrian bridges to create a unified station approach through the heart of the adjacent transit-oriented development (TOD), connecting East Liberty and Shadyside.
Design work included an initial TOD and Transit Revitalization Investment District (TRID) urban design study, followed by a conceptual design for the station and adjacent development, and finally, design architect services for the station reconstruction. The station project and adjacent development won a $15 million Federal Tiger IV grant in 2012. In the larger context of redeveloping East Liberty, the project successfully creates a new eastern gateway to the neighborhood and directly connects the Busway Station to the existing business district. These guiding design concepts were called for in multiple community plans dating back to the mid 1990s.
We craft our design process around the specific needs of the client and community. Working with the future users of the project, we use public meetings, community walks, interviews and other techniques to identify issues, needs and assets. Our process then employs a broad range of graphic techniques and media to communicate design scenarios and ultimately tell the story of the project.