Planning
A strong land plan becomes the backbone of any great project. A great land plan creates a sense of community, connectivity of all the program elements, and has an efficient and logical circulation route. On the contrary, a poor land plan can lead to millions of dollars in needless infrastructure and earthwork. During my career, I have personally been responsible for the planning, layout, and design of over 100 successful new development projects. Additionally, I work closely with several great land planners and landscape architects to ensure the creation of brilliant master plans.
At Arthur Hills/Steve Forrest and Associates, I was personally responsible for the planning, layout, and design of over 100 new development projects.
View examples:
Port St. George, Bahamas
The program for Port St. George called for an 18 hole golf course, residential, a large marina with commercial/retail areas, and a hotel. The original master plan (completed by an "unnamed" land planning firm) depicted the golf running around the perimeter of the site with the residential in the middle. This created an opportunity for other developers to come in and "steal" our clients land value by building homes along our property border that are essentially "on the golf course". Our solution created not only higher value home sites, (over looking the water to golf) but also created a better "core" golfing experience.
Project Khayaal, Oman
This project program called for an 18 hole golf course, single-family residential, multi-family residential, a large hotel, a boutique hotel, and a commercial area. The client approached AHSF to explore other options compared to their original master plan. The original master plan had some huge fundamental land planning flaws: most residential areas were situated well below the golf holes, the circulation was chopped up and confusing, and every golf hole was double-loaded with homes. Our solution created a simplified and logical circulation pattern. We also utilized the unique and dramatic arroyos that ran through the site for the golf holes and placed the home sites up on the ridges above the golf. This created dramatic long views for more home sites down along the golf or "green" corridors out to the Sea.
Tierra Segunda, Denver, Colorado
Tierra Segunda was my college capstone project that I completed with colleague Brock Reimer, founder of Studio Site Works. This was a brownfield redevelopment project situated on close to 500 acres along Clear Creek, north of Denver (over 100 acres of the site was an old landfill). Brock and I worked closely together to complete a comprehensive land plan which included an 18 hole golf course, single family, multi-family and commercial areas.
The project won the 2003 American Society of Landscape Architects highest award in the student design competition and was featured in the September 2003 edition of Landscape Architecture.