Listening, Collaboration and Flexibility: Driving Unity Through Design
Within HGOR, recently honored with a Firm of the Year award by the American Society of Landscape Architects’ Georgia chapter, lives a team of visionaries equipped to transform the built environment by embracing an educated voice and using a well-attuned ear to discover more progressive design solutions. Our SEE Philosophy, a structured-but-flexible approach, helps us adapt to our projects' unique attributes while making positive impacts within our communities.
Listening at the Forefront
Each project and client are different and require listening to needs and goals, asking insightful questions, engaging the ideas of stakeholders and the community, and conducting proper site analyses to be at the core of our planning and design process. We want our clients to feel like we are part of their work effort, so we strive to understand their ideas first and provide value by identifying how to advance the environment through designs that complement and connect their site to a broader sense of community.
While projects often come to us in a timeline format, many are presented as big ideas needing an experienced designer to bring them to life through innovative solutions.
When Jay Gipson, Assembly Atlanta developer, shared his vision for a mixed-use development to create a vibrant community entertainment destination capitalizing on the booming film industry, Chris Mutter used his keen ability to listen and absorb the values rooted within the concept. Chris and his team sketched a design, immediately capturing the very essence of Jay's vision--the "Idea of the Idea" served as the framework for the development.
From Big Picture Down to Intricate Details
HGOR brings unparalleled perspectives to planning and design projects, allowing the team to consider high-level aspects and complex details of assignments. Starting every project with topography assessments and land analyses provides an in-depth understanding from a planning perspective that uncovers increased opportunities for innovative connectivity, cost savings, and an environmental ethos.
Initially hired for master planning efforts, HGOR exerted planning and design skills at City Place / Marie Sims Park by creating efficient, walkable urban blocks in an irregularly shaped property originally slated for nine condominium towers with a traditional underground vault stormwater system requiring intricate piping and installation. The master plan defined an aggregated greenspace that provides dual-purpose centralized stormwater management through a multi-tiered system capturing two-year storm events in a lower wet pond and allowing major storms to spread out over the otherwise usable lawn space. HGOR's approach illustrated infrastructure cost savings that virtually covered the park's construction cost by incorporating green infrastructure and creating a people-centric destination.
Teamwork Unites Us
Research indicates that collaborative problem-solving leads to improved outcomes, and individuals are more likely to take calculated risks that lead to innovation through the support of a team. Within HGOR, our strength comes from each team member's efforts and abilities and the collaboration among multi-disciplinary project teams.
Nurturing shared goals, being receptive to others' ideas, and applying diverse skills and perspectives generate flexibility within intricate projects. Designing the public spaces for the 2-acre heart and soul of The Battery Atlanta at Truist Park, the gateway to the 60-acre regional destination, was no small feat due to time-sensitive deadlines, simultaneous on-site developments managed by five individual contractors and an extensive multi-disciplinary team. HGOR led flexibly, meeting the client's goals despite continuously moving parts, such as the plaza rotating from an on-grade to an on-structure during the construction process. The team curated designs that harmoniously resonate with the community and thoughtfully accommodate pedestrian flow fostering a deeper connection with the space.
What is the ultimate indicator of success?
For HGOR, success means enhancing the natural environment by turning the client's vision into a reality while eliciting the ethos of their community or organization. To us, a positive impact equates to an activated space that merges a community and creates a place where people want to be.
The result of tuning in to the vision for Assembly Atlanta brings life to the city's largest brownfield redevelopment, delivering 50 acres of film studios, 19 sound stages, production offices, 85 acres of film-worthy environments including a four-acre public park, miles of public streets and sidewalks, and streetscape facades that mimic well-known cities worldwide, creating a regional destination. With its cutting-edge design, Assembly Atlanta aims to significantly impact the State of Georgia's economy by creating thousands of jobs and increasing revenue through partnerships with top production companies.
In addition to construction cost savings, a notable achievement for the City Place/Marie Sims Park efforts is that it increased property values, exponentially exceeding its pre-recession value, and became the highest-value property in the market at the time. The deeper thought process and stewardship of resources created an experience through a shared amenity, walkable connections to the MARTA Transit Station, and maximized views through open space, adding to the sense of place for the community.
The team's leadership and synergy at The Battery Atlanta at Truist Park created an engaging destination encouraging the community to visit beyond baseball season through captivating elements, such as the iconic baseball sculpture, theater-sized LED screen and five water features. By understanding the client's vision, site context and responding to ever-changing needs during the planning phases, HGOR provided the community with a dynamic setting and numerous options for entertainment that produced a substantial economic impact for the client and State of Georgia, with record growth and a $3 million revenue increase in 2022, as reported by Liberty Media.
Utilizing consistent methods and innovation has been a key factor in allowing HGOR to earn its place at the forefront of planning and design. Established approaches have led us to streamline our processes, and have allowed our firm to ensure high-quality, reliable results which, when tied together, foster trust among our clients. Most importantly our design consistency has led us to create communities-- where users can strengthen human connection.
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