Community Engagement and Context

We find that public projects take form when design ideas authentically reflect the individual community’s characteristics and culture. These buildings are often legacy projects, designed to last up to a century, and play an integral, long-term part in the life of the communities they support. Successfully delivering a project like this requires a nuanced understanding of the community, overarching aspirations, and empirical projections like demographic growth.

Mackenzie is passionate about immersing ourselves in the communities we design for and understanding the expectations of the diverse stakeholders within them. Our commitment to realizing and embracing a community’s culture can be distilled into these steps:

ƒ Establish a design that reflects community expectation, both near and long term.

ƒ Root design considerations in operational requirements that support the needs of the community and the emergency responders.

ƒ Pursue a collaborative project process and design response that citizens can rally behind and support, particularly when asked to fund a general obligation bond.