Material transparency is key for architects and designers to improve health, reduce environmental impact, and promote equity. We use transparency frameworks like LEED, Living Building Challenge and the AIA Materials Pledge to inform our practice.
As we help communities design their streets, transportation systems, and public spaces, we recognize the uncertainty that big changes can bring. By focusing on the fundamentals of walkable communities and safe, accessible networks, we will be resilient.
The Allegheny Together Main Street Technical Assistance Program was recognized with a 2024 Planning Award by the Pennsylvania Chapter of the American Planning Association.
The Comprehensive Parks Recreation and Open Space Plan is a 10-year playbook to give the City of Lancaster the tools needed for long-term equity and sustainability throughout its parks, recreation, and open space network.
We develop scorecards for green space plans and other types of urban planning to track these indicators. A key reason we value scorecards is the need for more granular data to inform decision-making than can be achieved with existing tools. The scorecards provide stakeholders with a common language and a clear set of priorities, and are also useful in helping to secure funding.
Climate action happens at the community scale, as well as regionally and at the state level. By planning at every scale, opportunities for greater impact can be created. Often the key to being able to take advantage of funding opportunities for environmental programs and projects, is simply to have an implementable plan in place.
evolveEA facilitated the process where participants built knowledge about Community Land Trusts, explored alternatives, and made decisions regarding CLT Expansion. Equity and inclusion were central to these endeavors, which led to the establishment of the City of Bridges Community Land Trust.
As we design transit stations, it is important to remember that for many people with disabilities, several barriers remain in navigating to and within the pedestrian environment. Ron Brooks will be talking at Mpact with Sarine Sahakian about wayfinding, universal design, technology and its challenges and opportunities.
The Uptown neighborhood will see a transformation from parking lots to a multi-use development that includes affordable and market-rate housing, a bus rapid transit hub, and public art allowing opportunities for cultural expression. evolveEA led the masterplanning of the public spaces and is currently designing the public spaces with artists from the Hill and Uptown.
In another Missing Middle Models blog post, we talked with Christine Walker of Navigate LLC about the strategies involved in establishing and operating a Community Land Trust to address housing needs, as well as design and market strategies that are shaping equitable communities in mountain destinations like Bozeman, Montana.
The growing trends of modular construction and automation—technology that some of our current residential projects are utilizing—is one piece of this puzzle. We would like to share the benefits and challenges that can come with different approaches to modular construction and possible implications for the future of housing development globally.
