livingLAB

Congratulations to Detroit Horse Power on the groundbreaking of their urban equestrian center in the City of Detroit. It will be the largest in the country when it begins serving Detroit youth.

Detroit Horse Power’s mission is to teach Detroit students to ride and care for horses to develop critical skills that will set them up for academic, career, and life success.

To learn more about DHP’s mission and to support their important work, follow this link:

https://www.detroithorsepower.org/urban-equestrian-center

Detroiters! Please consider taking a survey to help us gather input on what you’d like to see in Patton Park.

Bit.ly/pattonmasterplan

Southwest is ready to build the ‘Clemente Cut’! Lots of ideas in the mix for this Arts Alley.

What a day!

We spent all of it touring Belle Isle on bikes to begin work on the Belle Isle Multimodal Study with

The work will guide short and longer term improvements focused on making getting onto and moving around the island easier for all users - regardless of transportation mode.

Look forward to engaging with Detroiters over the next year to create a safer, more beautiful, easy to access park for all.

What a fun week ahead finishing up our tours of 5 amazing arts alleys. Looking forward to supporting these dynamic neighborhoods continue to do great work with improvements to the infrastructure so they can expand their already excellent programming!

Sneak peek at materials in a plaza space about to appear in Downtown Detroit.

While we spend loads of effort ensuring our projects meet client, community, and our own sustainability goals, we love it when clients continue to improve upon this work by promoting awareness of the resiliency built into their projects.

Field visit this morning on the riverfront. Inspection of concrete finishes for the new plaza and promenade at Riverside Park.

Congratulations to OHM Advisors (Orchard, Hiltz & McCliment, Inc.), City of Detroit Planning & Development Department, Urban Strategies, 3C, Quinn Evans and the rest of the planning team who created a focused redevelopment plan for MorningSide, East English Village, and Cornerstone Village neighborhoods—earning a Michigan Association of Planning Excellence Award.

livingLAB spent time taking to residents, stakeholders and others as a park of the Neighborhood Planning Process about ways to improve Balduck Park for residents - ultimately developing a framework design for redevelopment.

The extensive year-long public engagement effort amidst the global Covid-19 pandemic led jurors to comment: "The number of people engaged and having had input in the process is very impressive given the challenges that were faced, as is the momentum the plan generated through early investments. That demonstrates a well executed initiative in a neighborhood that was poised for growth and reinvestment."

East Warren / Cadieux Neighborhood Plan | City of Detroit The East Warren / Cadieux Neighborhood Plan is a plan of action, backed by dedicated funding resources, to guide future growth and investment in the neighborhoods of Morningside, East English Village, and Cornerstone Village. The community and the City are crafting the Plan together to achieve: a he...

Do you regularly visit Riverside Park? You'll be in for a treat starting later this summer as undeveloped areas of the park undergo transformation and the West Grand Boulevard entrance sees a major improvement, including a grand park entrance.

Glad to be a part of the visioning, design and implementation of this work with WSP, City of Detroit Planning & Development Department, OHM Advisors (Orchard, Hiltz & McCliment, Inc.), and Wade Trim.

Detroit's Riverside Park is undergoing extensive renovations, will link up with two area greenways A Detroit park that's set to become a greenway hub is in the middle of a breath-taking transformation.

It was fun to join Mr. Barnett and his Environmental Science students at Royal Oak High School to field some questions and speak to them a little bit (remotely, of course) about the profession of Landscape Architecture. Specifically, about stormwater management in the urban environment.

It was so encouraging to see that students are learning at a young age the importance of urban stormwater run-off management (aka Green Infrastructure). They know that developing a plan in the early stages of any project is a smart way to ensure that we are protecting our Great Lakes and inland waterways, easing the burden on our aging municipal sewer infrastructure, reducing ongoing utility improvements and maintenance costs, as well as dozens of other valuable benefits.

It's important that stormwater management is a top priority - not an afterthought - for any development or improvement project, large or small.