Perkins+Will announced on Aug. 18 the firm’s latest planning wins and expanded business for its planning practice, with a focus on work for underserved neighborhoods and regions.
Led by global leaders Janice Barnes and Karen Alschuler, Perkins+Will has broadened its efforts with economic development groups, regional planning agencies, as well as transit agencies, healthcare providers, and mixed-use developers. The work is resulting in comprehensive, long-term plans that will guide new growth in places like Buffalo, N.Y., Kingston, R.I., and Brooklyn, N.Y.
“These new projects reflect Perkins+Will’s commitment to the many New York communities where serious need remains for improved community health and its supporting infrastructure, housing, health services, recreation, and transit,” says Barnes, PhD. “It’s all part of public- and private-sector efforts to knit together the very fabric of our cities, to reinforce and revitalize them, which can only happen through serious community engagement.”
Helping connect community leaders with planning agencies and such client groups as New York’s Economic Development Corp. (EDC), the Erie Canal Harbor Development Corp. (ECHDC), Wyckoff Heights Medical Center, and Community Care of Brooklyn PPS, Perkins+Will is taking a leadership role in shaping major waterfront redevelopment, urban revitalization, transit centers and health districts, says Barnes.
Principals include Barnes, who leads the firm’s Planning+Strategies group, along with: Karen Alschuler, who leads Urban Design; Robin Guenther, FAIA, a global leader in resilience and healthcare; and health district expert Jason Harper, AIA, who recently presented on health district planning in Toronto at the World Congress on Design & Health.
In addition, Perkins+Will has been selected as lead consultant for a number of significant planning commissions and related initiatives. Recently announced projects led by Perkins+Will include:
Buffalo
Perkins+Will has been selected to design a waterfront master plan in Buffalo, including the reuse and redevelopment of 171 acres of the outer Lake Erie harbor. The plan will reconnect downtown Buffalo with its waterfront and create a vibrant destination of community, commerce and culture. The client, ECHDC, is working with the firm’s New York and San Francisco offices on three development alternatives for the land, with significant community engagement and public participation. Led by Alschuler and Dennis Dornan, a senior planner in the firm’s urban design group, the result will be a complete land-use framework, including financial projections and an operations plan, to encourage active use of the outer harbor while enhancing public access and linking it to downtown and its Canalside district. Thomas Dee, the CEO of ECHDC, noted that Perkins+Will has a track record of successful experience with cold-weather waterfronts – in Ottawa and Toronto, among others.
The firm is also involved with projects that address legacy brownfield remediation to reimagine post-industrial sites, such as their new project in Kingston, N.Y. The firm’s senior planner, Amy Thompson, notes that this work reflects Perkins+Will’s long history of leadership in urban design and environmental stewardship nationally.
Health Districts
The firm is also working on a range of planning projects where the goal is to create a regional health district – a livable, walkable neighborhood that focuses on wellness, prevention and overall community health through network partnering and pooled resources. Perkins+Will’s Harper, who frequently lectures and publishes on the topic, has also worked to advance urban design and planning criteria for health districts with ULI, the Congress for New Urbanism, EcoDistricts, AIANY, the New York Academy of Medicine, and other groups. Harper, along with Basak Allen and David Green, advocates from both the grassroots and global perspective in his efforts to create healthier communities.
Brooklyn
One of those budding health districts may soon be in Brooklyn, where Barnes recently chaired a ULI workshop to spark new implementation strategies for a transit-oriented development (TOD) zone called Broadway Junction. Barnes and Harper, along with Daniel Windsor, senior urban planner at Perkins+Will, recently partnered with a panel of experts and community leaders to identify the short-, mid- and long-term “enabling projects” for the Broadway Junction community, The ULI New York's Technical Assistance Panel, or TAP, is a volunteer effort to provide urban planning strategies for targeted communities. The Broadway Junction community is within the catchment area of Wyckoff Heights Medical Center, where Perkins+Will is also at work assisting the medical center on the development of a strategy for a “health improvement district.”
The TAP will make recommendations to the New York City Department of City Planning as well as to local community board and nonprofits, “to incentivize large-scale and mixed-use development along key blocks … and create new employment, retail, and entertainment opportunities for surrounding residential communities,” says ULI New York. In parallel, and guided by Perkins+Will’s efforts, Wyckoff is identifying opportunities to partner with healthcare providers in the Broadway Junction community as well as in their larger catchment area, to increase access to healthcare services for this underserved area, which has some of the highest asthma and diabetes rates in the city.
Transit Oriented Developments of TODs (various locations)
In addition to Broadway Junction, Perkins+Will planners have been engaged for other large, mixed-use TOD plans in North America to spur economic revitalization in dozens of underserved communities. Recent TOD projects by the firm include the award-winning Treasure Island Master Plan + Urban Design project in San Francisco, the Beltline Corridor Design in Atlanta, and Station Park Green in San Mateo, Calif.
Resiliency (various locations)
Perkins+Will has worked with national, state and city leaders on regional plans and facility specific planning, design, and construction projects to identify and implements techniques for reducing climate- and weather-related risks to communities and the built environment. These planning and architecture projects examined how underserved communities can become more resilient to – and recover more swiftly from – the disastrous impacts of future severe weather events. Guenther, one of the firm’s experts on resilience, helps prepare health organizations for increased climate risks and severe weather. Guenther will speak on the topic at the conference“Building the Resilient City,” to be held Sept. 4-5 in San Francisco by the Urban Land Institute (ULI).
Related Stories
| Feb 11, 2011
RS Means Cost Comparison Chart: Office Buildings
This month's RS Means Cost Comparison Chart focuses on office building construction.
| Feb 11, 2011
Sustainable features on the bill for dual-building performing arts center at Soka University of America
The $73 million Soka University of America’s new performing arts center and academic complex recently opened on the school’s Aliso Viejo, Calif., campus. McCarthy Building Companies and Zimmer Gunsul Frasca Architects collaborated on the two-building project. One is a three-story, 47,836-sf facility with a grand reception lobby, a 1,200-seat auditorium, and supports spaces. The other is a four-story, 48,974-sf facility with 11 classrooms, 29 faculty offices, a 150-seat black box theater, rehearsal/dance studio, and support spaces. The project, which has a green roof, solar panels, operable windows, and sun-shading devices, is going for LEED Silver.
| Feb 11, 2011
BIM-enabled Texas church complex can broadcast services in high-def
After two years of design and construction, members of the Gateway Church in Southland, Texas, were able to attend services in their new 4,000-seat facility in late 2010. Located on a 180-acre site, the 205,000-sf complex has six auditoriums, including a massive 200,000-sf Worship Center, complete with catwalks, top-end audio and video system, and high-definition broadcast capabilities. BIM played a significant role in the building’s design and construction. Balfour Beatty Construction and Beck Architecture formed the nucleus of the Building Team.
| Feb 11, 2011
Kentucky’s first green adaptive reuse project earns Platinum
(FER) studio, Inglewood, Calif., converted a 115-year-old former dry goods store in Louisville, Ky., into a 10,175-sf mixed-use commercial building earned LEED Platinum and holds the distinction of being the state’s first adaptive reuse project to earn any LEED rating. The facility, located in the East Market District, houses a gallery, event space, offices, conference space, and a restaurant. Sustainable elements that helped the building reach its top LEED rating include xeriscaping, a green roof, rainwater collection and reuse, 12 geothermal wells, 81 solar panels, a 1,100-gallon ice storage system (off-grid energy efficiency is 68%) and the reuse and recycling of construction materials. Local firm Peters Construction served as GC.
| Feb 11, 2011
Former Richardson Romanesque hotel now houses books, not beds
The Piqua (Ohio) Public Library was once a late 19th-century hotel that sat vacant and deteriorating for years before a $12.3 million adaptive reuse project revitalized the 1891 building. The design team of PSA-Dewberry, MKC Associates, and historic preservation specialist Jeff Wray Associates collaborated on the restoration of the 80,000-sf Richardson Romanesque building, once known as the Fort Piqua Hotel. The team restored a mezzanine above the lobby and repaired historic windows, skylight, massive fireplace, and other historic details. The basement, with its low ceiling and stacked stone walls, was turned into a castle-like children’s center. The Piqua Historical Museum is also located within the building.
| Feb 11, 2011
Justice center on Fall River harbor serves up daylight, sustainable elements, including eucalyptus millwork
Located on historic South Main Street in Fall River, Mass., the Fall River Justice Center opened last fall to serve as the city’s Superior and District Courts building. The $85 million facility was designed by Boston-based Finegold Alexander + Associates Inc., with Dimeo Construction as CM and Arup as MEP. The 154,000-sf courthouse contains nine courtrooms, a law library, and a detention area. Most of the floors have the same ceiling height, which will makes them easier to reconfigure in the future as space needs change. Designed to achieve LEED Silver, the facility’s elliptical design offers abundant natural daylight and views of the harbor. Renewable eucalyptus millwork is one of the sustainable features.
| Feb 11, 2011
Research facility separates but also connects lab spaces
California State University, Northridge, consolidated its graduate and undergraduate biology and mathematics programs into one 90,000-sf research facility. Architect of record Cannon Design worked on the new Chaparral Hall, creating a four-story facility with two distinct spaces that separate research and teaching areas; these are linked by faculty offices to create collaborative spaces. The building houses wet research, teaching, and computational research labs, a 5,000-sf vivarium, classrooms, and administrative offices. A four-story outdoor lobby and plaza and an outdoor staircase provide orientation. A covered walkway links the new facility with the existing science complex. Saiful/Bouquet served as structural engineer, Bard, Rao + Athanas Consulting Engineers served as MEP, and Research Facilities Design was laboratory consultant.
| Feb 11, 2011
A feast of dining options at University of Colorado community center, but hold the buffalo stew
The University of Colorado, Boulder, cooked up something different with its new $84.4 million Center for Community building, whose 900-seat foodservice area consists of 12 micro-restaurants, each with its own food options and décor. Centerbrook Architects of Connecticut collaborated with Denver’s Davis Partnership Architects and foodservice designer Baker Group of Grand Rapids, Mich., on the 323,000-sf facility, which also includes space for a career center, international education, and counseling and psychological services. Exterior walls of rough-hewn, variegated sandstone and a terra cotta roof help the new facility blend with existing campus buildings. Target: LEED Gold.
| Feb 11, 2011
Chicago high-rise mixes condos with classrooms for Art Institute students
The Legacy at Millennium Park is a 72-story, mixed-use complex that rises high above Chicago’s Michigan Avenue. The glass tower, designed by Solomon Cordwell Buenz, is mostly residential, but also includes 41,000 sf of classroom space for the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and another 7,400 sf of retail space. The building’s 355 one-, two-, three-, and four-bedroom condominiums range from 875 sf to 9,300 sf, and there are seven levels of parking. Sky patios on the 15th, 42nd, and 60th floors give owners outdoor access and views of Lake Michigan.
| Feb 11, 2011
Iowa surgery center addresses both inpatient and outpatient care
The 12,000-person community of Carroll, Iowa, has a new $28 million surgery center to provide both inpatient and outpatient care. Minneapolis-based healthcare design firm Horty Elving headed up the four-story, 120,000-sf project for St. Anthony’s Regional Hospital. The center’s layout is based on a circular process flow, and includes four 800-sf operating rooms with poured rubber floors to reduce leg fatigue for surgeons and support staff, two substerile rooms between each pair of operating rooms, and two endoscopy rooms adjacent to the outpatient prep and recovery rooms. Recovery rooms are clustered in groups of four. The large family lounge (left) has expansive windows with views of the countryside, and television monitors that display coded information on patient status so loved ones can follow a patient’s progress.
