Placemaking Through Urban Layering

Unlike the Central Business Districts of the past, where single-use offices dominate, Central Social Districts (CSDs) are thriving, multipurpose urban cores where people can find the best of what city life has to offer. We strive to build these environments by cultivating and connecting a diverse mix of program throughout individual projects and district-scale endeavors. Because of their diverse user bases, mixed-use projects are ideal contributors to the CSD, attracting different types of people at different times of day and days of the week. However, to be successful, these developments need to feel coherent, connected to the city, and authentic.

Across varying scales, urban conditions, and programmatic intensities, we think about urban placemaking as a process of layering. While as much as 90% of space in a mixed-use project may be given over to some combination of core program areas such as office, residential, retail, or hotel, it is the final 10% that transforms program into experience and imbues the development with a sense of place. This is the amenitization layer. It comprises the activated ground plane with its markets, gardens, and gathering spaces, the sky terraces and podium parks that punctuate the vertical journey, the lobbies and courtyards that blur the boundary between inside and out.

Atop this connective layer is a smaller but no less significant application of iconicity or so-called “wow moments”. These are the distinctive features that leave a lasting impact on visitors and help form the place’s visual identity. A project’s “wow moment” may be the breathtaking skyline view from an elevated public garden, the soaring atrium that reorients the visitor’s sense of scale, the singular piece of public art, or even the architectural gesture that becomes a landmark.

By mixing uses, layering amenities, and punctuating the environment with distinctive architectural features, we make places that function efficiently and feel completely unique.