Our Work

Where plans become places.

Every project begins by understanding a specific place and the people whose futures will be shaped by the decisions made today.

We come to the table with experience, ideas, and tools —

But we know we don’t have all the answers. The best solutions grow out of an inspiring, hands-on process of co-creation that gets the community excited and invested. That investment is what creates local champions — and they are key to ensuring plans get adopted, funded, and built.

We work at the intersection of planning, design, economics, and policy — on the projects that need those disciplines working as one practice, not as separate firms passing work between them. Our services span seven practice areas, and most projects draw on more than one.

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Our Practice Areas

We work across seven interconnected practice areas. Most projects draw on more than one.

A plan works when it fits the place, holds up in the market, and earns support from the people it affects.

balance

Beaverton Urban Renewal Portfolio Strategy

Beaverton Urban Renewal Portfolio Strategy

Real Estate + Feasibility

Strategies for five downtown sites led to a successful public-private partnership in Beaverton, now planning 231 homes at Lombard West.

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Flagstaff Development Code Update & Impact Modeling

Flagstaff Development Code Update & Impact Modeling

Zoning + Code Reform

Code diagnosis and prototype testing led to recommendations to help Flagstaff build affordable housing and reach carbon neutrality.

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“Our Juneau” Comprehensive Plan

“Our Juneau” Comprehensive Plan

Visioning + Long-Range Planning

Testing where Alaska's capital should grow, with residents favoring a Multiple Centers scenario for a plan built to hold up across many futures.

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These five attributes shape how we approach every project —

regardless of type, scale, or geography.

Spatial Planning + Placemaking

Conceptual planning, test-fits, streetscapes, and master plans that make places walkable, vibrant, and inclusive — with the design and economic analysis to show they can actually be built.

Visioning + Long-Range Planning

Comprehensive and general plans that frame alternative futures, surface trade-offs, and set a direction the community owns — not one it inherits from a process it didn’t trust.

Urban Analytics + Scenario Planning

Growth modeling, fiscal impact analysis, and policy evaluation that let communities test alternative futures before committing — decisions made with eyes open to uncertainty, not in spite of it.

Real Estate + Feasibility

Site feasibility, pro forma, public-private partnership structuring, and development strategy for public-sector clients navigating the gap between what a place could be and what the market will currently support.

Zoning Code Reform

Code audits, zoning updates, form-based codes, and design standards written for adoption and legal review — not just policy aspiration. Pro-forma-driven analysis that tests whether new standards produce the outcomes they promise.

Housing Policy

Housing needs analyses, production strategies, and middle-housing policy calibrated to local markets and state statutory requirements — so plans produce housing, not just goals.

Environment + Sustainability

Urban forestry, parks and open space planning, climate action, and environmental equity analysis — treated as a land use problem alongside core planning practice, not as a separate sustainability track.

How We Work

1. Road-Tested Futures

We structure work around alternative futures rather than a single recommended path, stress-testing strategies against market, regulatory, and political conditions before clients commit. Scenario planning, feasibility analysis, and housing needs assessments form the analytic foundation — so decisions get made with eyes open to uncertainty, not in spite of it.

2. Visually Striking Storytelling

Sophisticated analysis is only useful if non-technical audiences can engage with it. We translate quantitative findings, policy choices, and design ideas into plain-language narratives, diagrams, and renderings that a council member, a property owner, or a neighbor can see, debate, and act on — without simplifying the substance underneath.

3. Hands-On, Equitable Engagement

Quality process creates quality outcomes. We engage authentically, not transactionally — designing processes that meet people where they are, in their language, their venue, their schedule, so communities feel genuinely heard, not simply consulted. We integrate that input with the technical work it’s meant to inform, to create outcomes shaped by the community.

4. Place-Based Designs

Two convictions drive our practice: a plan only matters if it can be acted on, and planning works best when it’s grounded in a real place. Every plan, policy, and analysis we produce is anchored to specific places — drawing on local form, history, and patterns of use so ideas can be visualized, debated, refined, and built. Grounding the work spatially is what makes spatial planning more than a label.

5. Market-Feasible Strategies

A plan is only as good as its adoption rate. We are clear-eyed about the financial, regulatory, and political obstacles to realizing equity and sustainability, and we build those conditions into the work from the start — pro forma stress-tests, code drafts written for legal review, strategies calibrated to what the market will actually support and build.