1. Strategic Planning

A client may have a site, and a brief for their vision – a great start. A simple question we always ask is have you considered your wider context? When asking this question, we are looking to hear and understand the client’s perception of the direct constraints, influences, and opportunities that surround this physical site and its broader cultural, social, commercial, and environmental relationships. We seek to fully place the sites in a broader and defined understanding so that the external influences can be reviewed and incorporated into the ongoing project design process. Our simple queries and investigations highlight major influencers on a project’s composition and consideration. In doing so we seek to validate all prior thinking from the client and explore the unseen or unperceived external; influences that can have significant impacts as the project progresses.

We ask questions about your site and brief based on how your project sits within a global context. Having lived and worked in so many places (Sydney, Shenzhen, Belgrade, Perth, Beijing, Hobart, Rome, Hong Kong, Doha, Adelaide, Athens, Brisbane, Kansas, Taipei, Melbourne, Singapore, Florence) we rely on these experiences to inform and illuminate the conversation. We also apply our expertise from high-level professional practice in Vietnam to bring relevant expertise to confirm assumptions and parameters based on real project experiences. There are so many examples were asking these questions has ultimately positively affected the brief, uses, layouts, mixes, composition, orientation, and project feasibility.

2. Master Planning

Where our knowledge and experience of urban design, typologies, natural and urban systems, and place making is applied to development briefs to create new and engaging ideas to shape the ultimate character and identity of new precincts. We aspired to create designs where sustainable strategies integrate human uses, activities, and built forms with the natural amenities and characteristics of the existing place. We seek to right previous wrongs, propose new ideas, searching for opportunities to create space positive experiences. We shape the spaces between the buildings and functions to create a delightful place. At the same time, we apply our expertise in how things should work in unison to avoid disjunctions, clashes, or breaks in the urban story that would diminish the created experience.

Our master planning experiences spread across many continents, countries, and cities, always engaging with the local conditions, cultures, and societies in order to develop new places that are referenced to the location and identity of the place. Our expertise means that our masterplans are fully considered and accurate and so many sites and infrastructure issues must also be developed so that there is a coordination of the intended ambiance and the actual workings of the plan.