KPF’s projects successfully answer this question through design innovation, attention to finely crafted details, and by responding to neighborhood context. On an urban scale, our precincts blend greenery, support infrastructure improvements and connections, and develop people-focused neighborhoods. These large-scale projects not only prove that greater density can improve quality of life and positively impact the city, but are introducing a new type of neighborhood to the 21st-century city: the Central Social District (CSD).

Successful districts thrive when they are imbued with a diversity of uses. Since the pandemic, single-use business districts around the world, including both center-city downtowns and suburban office parks, have experienced a hallowing out of tenants and activity. But this trend is not universal. Some areas are repopulating faster than others. The uneven recovery has little to do with mandatory office attendance policies or regional politics. Instead, it is the result of a natural eagerness to live and work in places with mixed-use programming and social activity.

Another example is New York’s Hudson Yards. The firm’s involvement in the west-side neighborhood’s development began in the early 2000s and progressed through events including the 2008 financial crisis. The first sketches of the plan took place before the iPhone existed and ahead of an unprecedented technological revolution that saw the advent of ride-share and social media. Designed as an alternate CBD to Midtown and Lower Manhattan, Hudson Yards, and the area around it, has transformed into a mixed-use CSD that is evolving to meet the needs of its city.

One result of shifting use patterns is a change in how we understand the value of urban developments. In collaborations with clients, KPF has seen decreased emphasis on profit gain as the sole measure of success. A focus on user well-being and environmental impact has intensified. Instead of maximizing the number of units in a residential building, office space in a commercial building, or spaces in a parking lot, our clients are paying greater attention to the inclusion of amenities and climate impact as a mechanism for driving returns.

We are leveraging our experience by pursuing adaptive reuse projects, reinvigorating existing structures to not only maintain the urban character and preserve the material continuity of the city, but also preserve embodied carbon. This results in a drastically smaller environmental cost than demolition and new construction.

When KPF began working on Waterline, Texas’ first supertall, located at the intersection of Austin’s iconic Waller Creek and Lady Bird Lake, the team took the unusual decision not to maximize ground-floor space. This tradeoff allowed the project to foster a zone for pedestrians traveling along the city’s waterfront path, which ultimately increased the value of the existing and proposed retail areas. The project is a Central Social District in and of itself, with an active pedestrian pathway at its base and office, hotel, and retail space occupying the tower.

Building dense, mixed-use developments to enhance existing transit hubs is a common and sensible practice, as proximity to public transportation quickly increases the attractiveness and accessibility of a project, and new destinations bring more passengers to transit. Additionally, KPF pursues transit-oriented developments as an environmentally sustainable and equitable way to build cities, as it reinforces walking and mass transit rather than of journeys by private cars. One Vanderbilt amplifies its proximity to Grand Central Terminal by offering direct access to the subway, Metro-North Railroad lines, and the new East Side Access hub for the Long Island Rail Road. With office space, a restaurant, and an observation experience, One Vanderbilt offers tenants and tourists a seamless connection from transit to destination.

We are not only building solutions for density in well-populated places. We’ve set our goals on bringing new populations to purpose-built city centers at the periphery of traditional urban cores connected to regional transportation. These sites can offer affordable housing and attractive mixed-use communities that can more easily handle density with more cost-effective means. In neighborhoods in both Baltimore and Vancouver, KPF teams are developing districts within walking distance of transit lines outside of the urban core that blend programming and serve tenants of all ages. The plans include networks of green spaces and offer opportunities for affordable, multi-generational housing.

Attention to user well-being is at the heart of the design of successful social districts. A simple way to gain insight into how to design for density is to pay attention to where people want to spend their time. People want to complement the time they dedicate to their work with different types of programming. For that reason, users are straying from isolated office buildings and favoring entertainment and lifestyle districts, where a smaller quantum of office space is woven into the fabric of restaurants, cultural, educational, and sports programs.

Centrally located near three of Detroit’s cultural landmarks, the Little Caesars Arena, Comerica Park, and Fox Theatre, KPF’s design for Columbia Street Corridor serves as the backbone for District Detroit, an urban regeneration plan that prioritizes community and lifestyle programming. The project solves the division of fragmented neighborhoods through a streetscape design that enhances the public realm.

As our urban environment shifts to address the needs of growing populations in cities, one factor remains true: one’s enjoyment is necessary for a high quality of life. Projects that provide a sense of awe, foster the human capacity for curiosity, and reward our time are not only essential for our happiness, but they assist in revitalizing downtowns that are over-reliant on single-use commercial space. As cities continue to densify and our real-life experiences increasingly exist in tandem with media and increased access to information, KPF will look to embed joy and authenticity into our urban buildings and neighborhoods. Further, we will develop our plans to mitigate their impacts on the environment, not only because it is the right thing to do, but also because the users of our designs will increasingly demand guilt-free consumption of joy. By prioritizing sustainability from the onset, an emerging collection of Central Social Districts will influence the way our cities grow in the future.