Setting the stage for civic life outdoors
Front Cover: Atlanta Beltline Corridor, Atlanta, Georgia
Introduction ― 4
Selected Projects ― 8
― Public Space
Context-driven
Public spaces are invaluable to communities. They express our shared values. They serve as a meeting ground for people of diverse backgrounds. They provide the backdrop for commerce, recreation and shared cultural experiences.
At Perkins and Will, we design spaces by translating ecological and social considerations into poetic expressions of physical context. We create memorable places that draw people into the public realm, encouraging interaction and inspiring communities to take collective ownership.
Spaces that reflect values and revitalize connections.
We believe that public spaces should contribute positively to their surrounding ecological and social systems. Through public engagement, through storytelling and ultimately through well-crafted spaces, we create solutions that reinforce the identity of a place. But when the only constant in our lives is change – these spaces also need to adapt over time to meet the needs of future generations. We believe in the power of transformative design that expresses shared values of resilience, equity, and wellness in the public realm.
Atlanta BeltLine Corridor
Atlanta, Georgia
Client: Atlanta BeltLine, Inc.
Size: 21,120 acres
Completion Date: Ongoing
Awards:
Building Healthy Places Award, 2015, Honor Award, Tri-State ASLA, 2014
Award of Excellence, Georgia ASLA, 2014
Overall Excellence in Smart Growth
US Environmental Protection Agency, 2014
Award of Excellence, Atlanta Urban Design Commission, 2013
Merit Award Urban Planning/Design, Georgia AIA, 2013
― WHAT IT IS Celebrated as a national model for smart growth, the Atlanta BeltLine transforms a 22-mile industrial railroad corridor into a public greenway. →
Illustrative design diagram showing the grand vision for the Atlanta Beltline as a 22-mile loop.
The trail provides Atlantans with direct access to thousands of acres of extensive open space.
Atlanta Beltline Corridor
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The Beltline serves as the venue for Atlanta's only intown running series, the Lantern parade and the city's largest outdoor temporary art exhibition.
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The trail has become a premier fitness destination, inspiring Atlanta’s first and only in-town running series. ←
As native grasses and wildflowers revitalize the former brownfield, the restored habitat supports wildlife and native pollinators.
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The BeltLine Lantern Parade, one of many unique events that the design supports and inspires, draws 10,000+ participants.
The trail converts a former rail corridor into a a well-loved linear park creating safe access to more than 30 acres of new greenspace for the city.
Latter Day Saints’ Public Courtyard
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Client: The Church of Latter-Day Saints
Size: 1.1 acres
Completion Date: 2016
The urban landscape provides respite from the noise and activity of the Center City Philadelphia.
Entry court in front of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ Philadelphia Temple.
― WHAT IT IS
A prominently located courtyard and garden open and to the public serves as a beacon and new icon for the City of Philadelphia.
― WHAT MAKES IT COOL
The granite pavement is detailed to respond directly to the horizontality of two adjacent historic Renaissance Revival buildings.
Carefully crafted seatwalls shape the garden areas scaled to generate a private feeling within the public context.
The urban plaza is complemented by extensive lush urban planting.
Latter Day Saints’ Public Courtyard
A 155-space parking garage lies underneath the landcaped courtyard areas.
RSM PLAZA
Client: Golub & Company
Size: 3,000 SF
Completion Date: 2019
Awards:
Top Projects of 2018, Finance & Commerce, 2019
Minneapolis, Minnesota ― WHAT IT IS
A new plaza that serves as an extension of the civic landscape and the new main entry of the tower.
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WHAT MAKES IT COOL
The plaza invites the general public into a new dynamic space to activate the street frontage and allow for casual conversation and outdoor dining.
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The ambient lighting and open atmosphere in the plaza create a draw for evening gatherings and events.
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The plaza opens to the Nicollet Mall and offers a needed area of respite to sit, relax, and converse.
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The plaza offers a variety of seating arrangements to allow users to find the perfect spot to sit and watch the rhythms of the city.
The building and plaza are designed to maximize indoor/outdoor co-work opportunities and allow natural light into the building.
The Shops at Mary Brickell Village
Miami, Florida
Client: Rockhill Management
Size: 3 acres
Completion Date: 2019
― WHAT IT IS
Downtown Miami’s urban oasis where you’ll find shopping, social gatherings, dining and more all carefully designed for an enhanced pedestrian experience.
Bell Museum
Saint Paul, Minnesota
Client: University of Minnesota
Size: 54 acres
Completion Date: 2018
Awards:
National Design Award, Society of American Registered Architects, 2018
Merit Award, American Institute of Architects Minnesota, 2019
FAB Award Civic and Community Design Excellence, IIDA Northland, 2019
Engineering Excellence Award, American Council of Engineering, 2019
TEKNE Award - Building Design & Infrastructure, Minnesota High Tech Association, 2017
― WHAT IT IS
A visionary landscape and choreography of visitor experience conceptually driven by curiosity and the uniqueness of personal impressions at any given moment in time.
Entry sequence for the museum; Minnesota’s official natural history museum that has been preserving and celebrating the state for over 144 years.
The Bell Museum has kept honey bee colonies for over 20 years, which have been relocated from the roof to the new pollinator garden.
On-site biodiversity for pollinators, birds, small mammals, amphidibians and aquatic invertebrate are supported in this vibrant urban eco-system.
Previously housed in a confined building, the new site is designed as a learning landscape. This area shows how the landscape is configured to tie people, nature and the environment together.
Bell Museum ― WHAT MAKES IT COOL
Roof water captured by the on-site pond provides both habitat and the water needed for irrigating the vibrant landscape. Raingardens gather and filter all of the parking lot stormwater, sending it into the ground and recharging the aquifer located below the site.
9th Street at Innovation Square
Gainesville, Florida
Client: University of Florida
Size: 60 acres
Completion Date: 2015
Awards:
Merit Award, Georgia ASLA, 2016
Project of the Year Award, American Public Work Association, 2015
Honor Award, Florida ASLA, 2015
Out of the Box Award, Florida Redevelopment Association, 2012 President’s Award, Florida Redevelopment Association, 2012
Ninth Street is designed to be the heart of Innovation Square, a ten block mixed-use research district that connects downtown Gainesville with the University of Florida.
A boardwalk creates a connection and viewing platform of a lush basin filled with Sand Cordgrass, Coreopsis, and Iris. A stainless steel railing creates a refined edge to the basin.
― WHAT IT IS
A new urban framework solution cenetered around collaboration, research and discovery that is as sustainable as it is socially responsible.
Bands of coreopsis and iris provide a colorful display each spring of yellow and blue blooms. The staggered weir walls create a rhythmic pattern in the landscape.
WHAT MAKES IT COOL
Surface parking is reconstructed into a greenway zone with an integrated stormwater bio-filtration area.
A row of Bald Cypress trees under planted with Juncus creates a bold edge to the eastern side of the street.
The signature linear bands of the design are expressed in elegant concrete weirs. Each weir serves to slow down stormwater and allow it to slowly infiltrate, restoring the natural hydrologic cycle.
Stainless steel illuminated handrails highlight a boardwalk across the main bioretention area.
1315 Peachtree
Atlanta, Georgia
Client: Undisclosed
Size: 2 acres
Completion Date: 2010
Awards:
Great Places Award, Environmental Design Research Association, 2013
Merit Award, Georgia ASLA, 2012
Top Ten Green Project Award, AIA Committee on the Environment, 2012
Development of Excellence Award, ULI-Atlanta, 2011
Atlanta Regional Commission and the Livable Communities Coalition, Georgia AIA, 2011
Honor Award, Georgia AIA, 2011
― WHAT IT IS
A signature midtown plaza and garden rooftop terrace set the stage for outdoor civic-minded gatherings, events, and city views on a site that was once a car-oriented circular drive.
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Reuse and renovation is central to the concept of sustainability for the building and its site as exhibited in this diaram showing the water circulation for how it is recycled.
10,000 square feet of civic plaza replace what was once a circular driveway and connected parking bay.
― WHAT MAKES IT COOL
Rainwater is collected in a 10,000 gallon cistern and reused for the landscape irrigation, fountain and building needs.
Harvested rainwater is elegantly presented in the form of a water feature.
The new plaza routinely hosts special events and art installations.
The terrace is an amenity for the building tenants and has been used for events and meetings that involve both invited guests and the public.
Brandon Avenue Streetscape
Charlottesville, Virginia
Client: The University of Virginia
Size: 16 acres
Completion Date: 2016
Awards:
Honor Award, Southeast Regional ASLA, 2019
The master plan vision for this project calls for Brandon Avenue to become a total "Green Street"- a one-way loop with a bio-retention area and gathering spaces in the center.
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A 21st century take on Thomas Jefferson’s ‘Academical Village’: it’s an urban, mixeduse street centered on a multifunctional open space.
The master plan provides for on-site management and treatment of every drop of water that falls on the street and adjacent buildings.
Atlanta Dairies
Atlanta, Georgia
Client: Paces Properties
Size: 10 acres
Completion Date: 2017
― WHAT IT IS
An adaptive-reuse project for lovers of Atlanta’s vibrant manufacturing and culinary communities to explore seven days (and nights) a week.
Aerial view of the former loading yard, now transformed into a vibrant native landscape contrasted with linear industrial forms and places for people to gather. Much of the original concrete was repurposed throughout, while noteworthy artifacts were embraced and integrated into the experience.
― WHAT MAKES IT COOL
A range of spaces formed from lush planting, recycled concrete, and a series of terraced bridges and gabion walls.
Atlanta Dairies
Seating areas were created by repurposing steel beams from demolished structures into large benches.
Generous seating steps overlook the lawn, tucked between gabions retaining walls filled with salvaged concrete
Accessible boardwalks interconnect the terraces while allowing stormwater to flow freely through the siten.
Since 1935, we’ve believed that design has the power to make the world a better, more beautiful place.
That’s why clients and community members on nearly every continent partner with us to design healthy, happy places in which to live, learn, work, play, and heal. We’re passionate about human-centered design, and how design can impact our lives through sustainability, resilience, well-being, diversity and inclusion, and mobility. And we’re committed to advancing design through research. As a matter of fact, in 2018, Fast Company named us one of the World’s Most Innovative Companies in Architecture. Our team of 2,500 professionals provides worldwide interdisciplinary services in architecture, interior design, branded environments, urban design, landscape architecture, and more, and includes our partners Portland, Nelson\Nygaard, Genesis Planning, and Pierre-Yves Rochon (PYR).
For more information, contact: landscapearchitecture@perkinswill.com