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Charlotte Masterplan
FIRST WARD
Nine city blocks in the center of downtown. A developer who wanted to build a legacy, not just a fortune. And a fully realized vision of an ideal new urban neighborhood.
DF&A had the rare opportunity to prepare a master plan for a sizable portion of the downtown of a major US city. This was place-making from the ground up: an 11-million-square-foot master plan for a full quadrant in downtown Charlotte known as First Ward. Our brief ranged from diagramming traffic patterns to building massing to branding public spaces to preparing the schematic design of a dual branded Canopy/Homewood Suites. But our mission was greater than that: to tell the story of a new and transformative live-work-play neighborhood in a booming New South city.
THE MASTERPLAN
Throughout nine city blocks, we created (named, designed, and drew) interconnected but distinct spaces — retail centers, secluded parks, open plazas, residential tree-lined streets — that joined with the area’s existing assets to form a coherent and compelling new neighborhood. Master plans are typically a series of technical drawings that describe programming and traffic flow. We tried instead to create architectural vignettes, a series of interconnected places with real personality. To bring this neighborhood to life for future developers, architects, and city officials, we told stories, experiential journeys seen through the eyes of fictive residents as they moved through the future First Ward.
To create a neighborhood with a sense of history, coherence, and inevitability, we embraced the existing assets of our site. These included a brand new First Ward Park, with its landmark fountain and its open feel; the subtle curve of 8th Street; Light Rail stations at 7th and 9th Street; the historic Philip Carey Building, renovated and rented by Google Fiber; Treloar House, built by William Treloar in 1887; adjacency to ImaginOn, 7thStreet Market, and Hope 6 housing; and perhaps most important, proximity to Charlotte’s booming central business district.
A WALKABLE NEIGHBORHOOD
Our plan emphasized walkability and public transport, conceived new work-live-play neighborhoods, and embraced both the growth of this vibrant southern city and the shift in its demographics.
Dallas, Texas, is one of America’s most car-dependent major metropolitan areas, with some of the biggest highways around its downtown. Pedestrians are a rare breed. But does that mean people don’t want to walk? In designing the mixed-use complex Dallas Alpha West, DF&A wagered that not having to use a car would actually come as a relief. The firm adopted the Dutch concept of the woonerf, or shared street, to create a 14-acre dynamic mixed-use plaza that prioritizes the pedestrian.
When entrusted with bringing a world-class resort to the Shinnecock Nation land on Long Island’s Peconic Bay, DF&A knew that our first job was to respect the integrity of the land and the legacy of the people, on a site that has formed the fabric of the Shinnecock Nation identity for thousands of years. We designed the 20-acre, 13-building complex in collaboration with the tribe, in a way that complements the land’s natural beauty while leaving as much as possible in a natural state. We grouped the buildings—including a convention hall, recreation space, wellness center, longhouse, and residences—close together to preserve open space, but we insisted that every building we designed enhance rather than diminish the landscape. The resulting Resort at Westwoods is designed to be a source of cultural pride for the Shinnecock Nation and an expression of the tribe’s renowned hospitality. A modern manifestation of the Shinnecock Powwow, it celebrates the tribe’s traditions and values while welcoming visitors from around the world.
Designing the Seychelles Islands Center began almost as a philosophical conundrum: How do you create a visitors center for a place people cannot visit? The people of Mahé in the Seychelles Islands are the custodians of a remote natural wonder located 750 miles away: the island atoll of Aldabra. Few humans are allowed to go there, since they would pose a threat to the delicate ecology. Our task was to create a visitor center to help them imagine Aldabra, even experience it, in some tangential way.
