Planning Team
Duany Plater-Zyberk & Company (DPZ) specializes in Neotraditional Town Planning, also known as New Urbanism. The Company pioneered this field, and its leading edge continues to be defined by the hundreds of projects that its designers prepare each year.
Since its founding in 1980, DPZ has prepared over one hundred and twenty town planning projects. These include new towns and villages on open sites, as well as inner-city revitalization plans. Many of them are being implemented, with the feedback from the building process adding to the experience of the firm.
The better known of the new towns and villages include Seaside, Kentlands, Windsor, Kemer and Cornell. The inner-city plans include neighborhoods in Miami, Cleveland, and Oxnard, as well as the core areas of West Palm Beach, Trenton, and Providence.
The town plans vary each being specific to their place and circumstance. However, all projects have two things in common: they are based on Neotraditional town planning principles, and they are carefully conceived to be easily implemented. The political realism of these projects extends to the provision of extensive parking, the inclusion of large-scale retail, and the assimilation of suburban management and marketing techniques. The firm's extensive experience working for private developers has taught the principals how to create public-sponsored plans which thoroughly incorporate the demands of the private sector.
The firm's projects have received widespread recognition collecting many awards and other honors. There have been three books published on its work as well as several special segments on national television. In the last five years, the firm has been mentioned in over 900 publications.
DPZ has become well known for its specialty of coding. The writing of succinct and effective urban, architectural, and landscape regulations is the only way to guarantee that a project will be built as designed and achieve outstanding appreciation. One version of these codes, the Traditional Neighborhood District Ordinance, has been incorporated in the laws of municipalities in four states.
DPZ's work is primarily carried out through the charrette process. A charrette is an intense period of creative activity lasting three to six days, during which the firm encourages a broad range of involvement in the project design by the client, consulting professionals, municipal authorities, and the public. The process allows for positive concerns during the design phase. As everyone involved in the projects contributes to, and therefore "owns" the final designs, charrettes elicit a positive response from the community and regulating agencies. The charrette process also reduces the project design time and produces a series of precise graphic documents including a Master Plan, Detail Plans, Building Types, Street Sections and the above-mentioned Codes.
Duany's new book, "Suburban Nation", is a must read for anyone interested in Neotraditional Town Planning.
Andres Duany
Andres Duany was born in New York City on September 7, 1949, and grew up in Cuba until immigrating to the United States in 1960. He studied architecture as an undergraduate at Princeton University and received his graduate degree from Yale School of Architecture. He and his wife, Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk founded the practice that bears their name in 1980. They are part of a national movement for the reform of urbanism which is integrated with environmental, social and economic initiatives. Together with Solomon, Calthorpe, Polyzoides and Moule, they are the coordinators of the Congress for the New Urbanism.
Planning Team
Duany served as chief designer and led all meetings and presentations during the design charrette. Assisting Mr. Duany as Project Director was Mr. Jeff Speck. Galina Tahchieva served as Project Manager, handling the day-to-day responsibility of the project and continues to monitor the progress of Plan Baton Rouge. She also reviews the architectural plans of proposed new construction in the DDD to determine if the building conforms to the tenants of Plan Baton Rouge.
Alexander Garvin
Alexander Garvin is considered the leading downtown revitalization implementation expert in the United States. His new book, The American City: What Works, What Doesn't is considered the textbook on making positive change in urban America. Mr. Garvin, an architect, is New York City Planning Commissioner and a professor at Yale as well as a real estate developer. He was responsible for drafting the Implementation section for Plan Baton Rouge. Look for mention of Plan Baton Rouge in the revised edition of "The American City: What Works, What Doesn't" that will be available from McGraw-Hill in 2001.
Robert Gibbs
Robert Gibbs is a leading expert on the design and management of traditionally-organized retail. His specialty is organizing Main Street commercial districts to enable them to survive the competition from shopping malls and big-box outlets. His Retail Analysis and Recommendations are a valuable part of the revitalization plan.
Walter Kulash
Walter Kulash has more than 20 years of engineering experience in traffic planning for new private development, planning public street systems and developing public transit. Mr. Kulash has focused on the challenges of restoring livability to our streets, improving not only their performance for vehicular traffic but also their value and appeal for non-motorized travel, as good environments for business and as focal points of civic pride and enthusiasm. His contribution to creative traffic calming is a key part of the revitalization for Plan Baton Rouge.