Public Space, Heritage, and Identity

At the heart of every neighborhood and town in Connecticut are the diverse, pedestrian-oriented public spaces that form the backbone of public life—from historic town greens and vibrant commercial streets to quiet neighborhood parks and multi-town rail trails.

These spaces connect us together and frame both ordinary daily activities and community celebrations and events. But the quality and accessibility of the public realm varies across our neighborhoods, towns, and region and is not always equitably distributed. Due to changing economic factors or construction of infrastructure, some historic public spaces have been neglected over time, and require revitalization. In other cases, auto-oriented development (or redevelopment) has produced a fragmented, nowhere landscape not suitable for pedestrians, requiring an overlay of new elements to reconnect and recontextualize these places.

In nearly every planning and design project we do, we focus on defining and expressing the form and structure of the public realm, imagining how new and revitalized public spaces can support community goals can foster new connections. In doing so, we help communities think not only about how to bring disconnected assets like waterfronts, shops, housing, museums, and schools into a more logical and cohesive structure, but but how to create distinctive places which improve the quality of life for residents and attract visitors. In recent projects this has taken many forms—from distinctive streetscape designs that incorporate bioswales to process stormwater in the South End of Bridgeport, to a new public square in Norwich, to a new water taxi system on the Thames River that connects formerly disconnected sites while allowing visitors experience the space of water itself as a public space. In each case, the goal is to make the whole greater than the sum of its parts by emphasizing not individual buildings and sites, but the relationships between those parts.

For more of our work related to Public Space, Heritage, and Identity, check out our project archive.

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