Let’s not build another disconnected business park. We are all familiar with typical, highway-adjacent, suburbanized, business and industrial parks that feature monolithic, enclosed office buildings surrounded by networks of empty sidewalks, water-gobbling lawns, and acres of parking lots. Created during an era when planners thought activities should be separated physically, business parks assume that people […]
We at SERA are thrilled to congratulate Tim Smith for achieving the planning profession’s highest honor by being named to the American Institute of Certified Planners (AICP) College of Fellows. AICP is Planning’s national authority for certification in the US, and their College of Fellows includes professionals who have not only done great project work, […]
Sustainability, when you scale it up beyond buildings to think about neighborhoods, campuses, or regions, isn’t just about stormwater and mini-power grids. Sustainable strategies have to be rooted in the character and identity of their location, and add to its richness—this is what we mean by sustainable placemaking. History, past development patterns, and ongoing community […]
This month, the Clackamas County Board of County Commissioners accepted the work of the SERA-led Park Avenue Community Project and approved the effort to move forward into a code amendment process. This is a major success for a community that over the last decade has undergone multiple previous plan efforts never to be approved. Community […]
Header photo: GreenWorks While coronavirus and the attendant economic crisis have walloped Main Streets across the nation, Portland’s Denver Avenue is again going through a vibrant new transformation. The Kenton Business Association, working closely with Portland’s Bureau of Transportation and Salazar Architect, have created the Denver Avenue Plaza – prioritizing parts of the roadway […]
The wisdom of nature and its delicate beauty has long influenced art and design. It changes with the seasons, adapts to sunlight, temperature and rain, and has done so for thousands of years. Nature adapts to the earth’s cyclical processes, and so can our buildings. Enter Biomimicry, the concept of consciously emulating nature’s genius by […]
Covid-19 and social distancing requirements have changed how we engage outdoors, how we commute, travel and recreate — in many ways for the better! Earlier this month, we brought together a panel of active mobility experts in the Bay Area to help answer the question on many of our minds: How do we leverage this […]
My own involvement in Eugene’s waterfront redevelopment began down in the weeds over the summer in 2018. I first viewed the roughly dozen-acre plot that summer while biking around the city. When I stumbled upon the Eugene Water and Electric Board (EWEB) site by happenstance, I found just that – a rumple of cracked asphalt […]
The Oregon Chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects awarded McMinnville, Oregon’s new festival street top honors on Friday. The joint project by SERA and HDR received a Transportation award for transforming five city blocks along Alpine Avenue in 2018. Since 1885, Alpine Avenue has served as a semi-improved access road to the Historic […]
We’re envisioning downtown Beaverton’s revival and putting pedestrians first. Today, when you ask the average Beaverton resident “Where is downtown?” you’ll sometimes get a puzzled look and a return question: “Beaverton has a downtown?” But this is changing fast, and yesterday’s city approval of a new Urban Design Framework Plan, developed by a team led […]