Urban Design Associates creates innovative Master Plans, Urban Designs, Pattern Books, and Architecture for traditional mixed-income neighborhoods. These have been used to revitalize existing city neighborhoods with both large-scale and infill development, transform decayed public housing projects into vibrant mixed-income neighborhoods, redevelop brownfield and vacant industrial sites and build new towns in previously undeveloped areas.

VARIETY AND SUSTAINABILITY
UDA plans provide a mixed-income array of housing types and costs that address the changing needs of people at different life stages. Studies have shown that the social capital created in such neighborhoods situated within walking distance of daily services, schools, and churches, is a key factor in community stability, the health of residents, and in providing role models who inspire young people and, thus support the economic and social mobility of the neighborhoods' citizens. UDA has pioneered this return to traditional neighborhood development and remains at the forefront of these efforts.

THE UDA PROCESS
UDA uses a participatory planning process that engages local residents, political, religious, cultural, and business leaders in the creative process of design. Dynamic, three-dimensional graphics, developed as an integral part of our process, help build consensus and the support needed to successfully implement projects.
First, we assist participants to gain an understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of their community and to define goals for the new development. We then study the structure of the community, identifying the best places to make small- or large-scale changes. By creating a vision for the overall plan and the character of the houses, we help foster a shared focus that assists diverse stakeholder groups to work together effectively.
The plans establish a framework of streets and public open space and include architectural designs for the character and quality of the housing. The designs build on local traditions so that the new development fits into and supports the best of the existing housing regardless of type, size, cost or means of financing, ensuring that the positive qualities shared by all of the buildings are more compelling than the differences among individual structures. UDA Pattern Books, often commissioned by developers, assist builders in creating the desired image for the development.