Blog

Designing for belonging: What master planned communities and outdoor hospitality teach us about connection

09/29/2026 Voice Tagged Under: Community Development, Hospitality, Landscape Architecture, Planning

By Lance Ippel, Senior Planner at RVi Planning + Landscape Architecture

When we talk about “community” as designers, we aren’t just talking about the physical layout of streets, parks, or open spaces. Community is all about connection, and design plays an important role in how people connect to each other. In my experience designing master planned communities (MPCs) and outdoor hospitality destinations, I’ve seen the way spaces influence how people meet, socialize, and ultimately feel a sense of belonging. These outcomes are not accidental. They emerge from the careful layering of social connections, programs, and design elements.

As a landscape designer, I approach every project with the end user in mind. How will someone move through this space? How will they find their way, meet others, or carve out solitude when they need it? How do the functional community components, amenities, and activities interact to create an experience that feels welcoming to everyone? I answer all these questions through a layered design approach.

Layered design is a method of creating outdoor spaces by considering the various ecological, functional, and aesthetic elements that overlap and interact with each other. It ensures that all the elements of a personalized, inviting space, such as easy navigation, welcoming gathering spaces, and flexibility, all come together seamlessly to create a positive experience. MPCs and outdoor hospitality spaces are two types of communities that may have different physical outcomes but share a common design goal: to create environments that are intuitive, engaging, and welcoming to everyone.

Two worlds, one goal: Connection

At first glance, a master planned community and an outdoor hospitality destination may seem like two very different worlds. MPCs are long-term residential environments built to support everyday life, while outdoor hospitality can mean anything from a weekend camping trip to a month-long RV adventure. But the truth is that both share a surprising number of design goals.

First, navigation and connectivity are central to both. In a community, residents should be able to comfortably navigate their neighborhood whether by foot, bike, or car. As a designer, I often imagine how I would give directions to a friend visiting for the first time. No matter how large the development, people should never feel lost or disoriented. In outdoor hospitality, this concept shows up in how people drive into a site, park, and then shift into pedestrian mode. Campgrounds, glamping resorts, and RV parks all need clear wayfinding so guests can relax into their experience instead of worrying about getting around.

Both types of environments also rely heavily on gathering spaces. In MPCs, these might be central plazas, pedestrian promenades, or flexible-use parks where a neighborhood can host a birthday party one weekend and a cultural festival the next. Outdoor hospitality spaces also provide central nodes, but they often lean more toward walkable, intimate hubs like campfire circles, picnic shelters, or trailheads that naturally invite interaction with both people and nature.

Finally, both require a strong balance between individualized experiences and collective engagement. In a master planned community, residents may want quiet sidewalks for evening walks as much as they want vibrant community centers. In an outdoor resort, a guest might choose between spending time solo in a hammock or joining a group hike. Both contexts succeed when they provide options for socializing that feel comfortable no matter if someone comes alone, in a couple, with family, or as part of a larger group. healing process.

Different scales and different rhythms

The key difference in these two communities lies in scale and permanence.

Master planned communities are designed for longevity and growth over decades. I see them as functioning like a puzzle within a puzzle, where each section has its own identity but connects seamlessly to the larger whole. These places are built to feel like home in the truest sense: a backdrop for daily routines, family milestones, and neighborhood traditions. That makes navigation and comfort especially important because residents need to feel secure, grounded, and confident that their community supports the rhythms of everyday life.

The layering of spaces, connections, and programs in MPCs creates a flexible security and comfort, supporting both everyday life and moments of connection.

Outdoor hospitality environments, on the other hand, are temporary by nature. Visitors are usually there for a defined time, and their needs revolve around creating a meaningful experience in a short span. That makes walkability even more critical. Guests typically arrive by vehicle but then want everything within a short stroll once they’re on-site. For strategic designers, the challenge is twofold: creating spaces that immediately engage people during their stay while also weaving in experiences and elements that are memorable enough to draw them back again and again. Whether it’s the comfort of easily navigating a site, the charm of a communal fire pit where strangers become friends, or the uniqueness of a trail system that feels both accessible and adventurous, these touchpoints turn a temporary visit into a lasting connection.

Thoughtful layering of experiences encourages both private moments and social connection, allowing outdoor hospitality resorts to become a home away from home, drawing users back for more, and offering comfort and familiarity even in a new and temporary setting.

Layering experiences to build belonging and community

For the end user, a successfully layered experience translates into comfort, ease, and ultimately personal connection.

In an MPC, strong pedestrian connectivity means parents can let kids bike to the park with confidence. Central gathering areas mean neighbors can meet without needing to drive across town. The sidewalk in front of a home can connect to the regional trail system that connects scenic landscapes to the larger city. Thoughtful layered design transforms what could be just another subdivision into a neighborhood where people know each other’s names.

In outdoor hospitality, layered experiences ensure that even in an unfamiliar setting, visitors feel grounded. Clear trails, logical layouts, and inviting gathering spaces help guests focus less on logistics and more on connection, whether that’s roasting marshmallows with strangers around a campfire or simply enjoying a quiet morning coffee with a view.

The overlap between these two worlds reminds us that layered design is not just about the lines on a plan. It is about shaping human experience in ways that make people feel at home. When design is fragmented or disconnected, people notice. Confusing layouts, inaccessible gathering spaces, or a lack of flexible options all make it harder for people to feel comfortable. Layering social opportunities, programming, and design elements by contrast, removes barriers and fosters both intentional and spontaneous connection.

Community doesn’t happen by accident. It is cultivated through intentional design choices that prioritize meaningful connection, flexibility, and comfort. These environments don’t just provide shelter or recreation; they build empathy, strengthen neighborhoods, and expand cultural horizons.

Layered design is the thread that weaves these experiences together. It bridges the permanent and the temporary, the familiar and the new. When we peer past the overt presentation of a space—be it a master planned community or outdoor hospitality—we can better design for connection and belonging. In doing so, we do more than build spaces; we build community, shared culture, and a lasting sense of place

Author Bio: Lance Ippel is a Senior Planner at RVi Planning + Landscape Architecture in the Austin, Texas office and has more than nine years of experience in landscape architecture, planning, and land use. His work spans master-planned communities, RV and glamping resorts, marinas, and parks, where he coordinates projects and integrates land use, infrastructure, and design to create places that fit their surroundings and serve the people who use them. A member of ASLA and ULI, Lance is passionate about outdoor hospitality and shaping places that connect people to nature.

Blog

The healing power of place: The science behind healing gardens and better healthcare outcomes

08/26/2026 Voice Tagged Under: Campuses, Landscape Architecture, Planning

By Geoff Roehll, ASLA, CLARB, Director of Healthcare and Senior Living at RVi Planning + Landscape Architecture

The environments we inhabit shape our health in countless ways. Air quality, access to nature, opportunities for physical activity, noise, stress, and even the views outside our windows all influence our physical and mental well-being.

While many health factors lie beyond our control, our surroundings play a significant role in determining how we feel, how we recover, and how we thrive. It follows, then, that the environments where we receive care should be designed to support healing.

This isn’t just conjecture; decades of research have reinforced this connection. In a landmark 1984 study, environmental psychologist Dr. Roger Ulrich found that patients recovering from surgery who had views of nature experienced shorter hospital stays, fewer minor postoperative complications, and required fewer doses of strong pain medication than patients whose windows overlooked a brick wall.

Simply having a view of nature through the window can measurably influence recovery.

Since that groundbreaking study, a growing body of evidence has continued to demonstrate the relationship between nature, the built environment, and patient outcomes. And isn’t it something we all feel intuitively? As our understanding has evolved, so has the way hospitals approach planning and design. Healthcare campuses are increasingly viewed as holistic healing environments where landscapes, gardens, circulation and wayfinding, outdoor spaces, and everyday interactions with nature all contribute to treatment and recovery.

So, what does that look like in practice? How can a garden heal? Why do decisions about parking, circulation, or wayfinding matter? And how do these investments create value for healthcare organizations? It all begins with understanding how thoughtful design can reduce stress and support healing at every step of the healthcare journey.

Beyond aesthetics, every detail of a healing garden is meticulously crafted to support resident needs at Tabor Hills, a senior living community in Naperville, Illinois.

Healing gardens and the theory of supportive design

Understanding how a garden can heal requires understanding the role that stress plays in the healing process. Elevated stress can increase blood pressure, raise cortisol levels, interfere with immune function, heighten the perception of pain, and make recovery more difficult. Patients aren’t the only ones affected. Families coping with uncertainty and clinicians working long shifts experience many of the same physiological responses.

That’s what makes healing gardens so much more than attractive outdoor amenities. They’re carefully designed therapeutic environments intended to buffer against stress and create the conditions that allow healing to happen.

The foundation of Dr. Ulrich’s Theory of Supportive Gardens suggests four key ways by which gardens reduce stress: by helping patients regain a sense of control, fostering social support, encouraging movement, and providing positive distractions through nature. These four principles lay the groundwork for evidence-based healing garden design.

When we design healing gardens, we create opportunities for patients to regain a sense of agency in an environment where so much of their experience is prescribed. That might mean providing multiple destinations instead of a single path, offering choices between sun and shade, or creating quiet spaces where patients and families can spend time together away from the clinical setting.

We’re also thinking about the programming of the space, how the landscape supports care beyond passive enjoyment. The Integrative Medicine Garden at Advocate Good Shepherd Hospital in Barrington, Illinois, illustrates this principle. Designed to complement the hospital’s integrative medicine program, the garden extends care beyond the building itself, creating positive distractions and spaces for yoga, counseling, quiet reflection, walking, and social support that directly support the services offered inside the adjacent treatment center.

Movement is another critical consideration. Gently looping pathways encourage walking without creating dead ends or confusing circulation. Accessible routes, comfortable grades, and intuitive navigation allow people of varying abilities to move confidently through the space while supporting rehabilitation and light physical activity.

Finally, every sensory experience matters. The sound of moving water can soften the mechanical noise of a hospital campus. Native plantings, seasonal color, birds, butterflies, and shifting light provide positive natural distractions that gently draw attention away from pain, anxiety, or uncertainty. Together, these seemingly small interventions help restore a sense of calm—and ultimately support the healing process.

Soft lighting, lush plantings, and the illuminated water wall transform the garden into a peaceful retreat that supports reflection and relaxation throughout the day and into the evening.

The healthcare campus as a healing journey

While healing gardens are one of the most recognizable expressions of this philosophy, they aren’t the only environments that influence patient outcomes. The same principles that guide the design of a therapeutic landscape can—and should—inform every aspect of a healthcare campus.

Throughout the master planning process, we evaluate every decision through the perspective of the people using the campus every day—patients, families, visitors, clinicians, and staff. From the moment someone arrives, each interaction with the environment has the potential to either increase stress or alleviate it.

Healing begins long before a patient enters an exam room. Before treatment even begins, the arrival experience shapes how people feel about a healthcare campus. Finding parking, navigating unfamiliar surroundings, and locating the right entrance may seem like operational concerns, but they have meaningful human impacts. Every unnecessary detour or confusing decision point adds cognitive and emotional burden during an already difficult moment.

Accessibility is equally important. For hospitals and especially senior living communities, thoughtful planning minimizes walking distances, reduces grade changes, provides frequent opportunities to rest, and creates routes that feel safe, comfortable, and intuitive for people of all ages and abilities. These decisions may appear small in isolation, but together they help reduce stress, improve confidence, and create a more supportive experience for everyone who uses the campus.

That same philosophy extends to staff. Outdoor courtyards, rooftop gardens, walking paths, and other spaces for respite give clinicians opportunities to decompress during demanding shifts. Supporting the well-being of caregivers ultimately supports better care for patients, reinforcing the idea that a healing environment serves everyone—not just those receiving treatment.

That philosophy takes many forms depending on the needs of a campus. At the Lynn and Jerry Flaherty Family Respite Garden at OSF Saint Francis Medical Center, for instance, we transformed an underutilized rooftop into a restorative retreat for patients, families, and healthcare staff. Inspired by a journey through the woods, the garden weaves together intimate seating areas, gathering spaces, water features, and views of the Illinois River. While the space serves those who can access it directly, it also provides restorative views from surrounding patient rooms, reinforcing the idea that healing can occur through both experience and observation.

The Lynn and Jerry Flaherty Family Respite Garden at OSF Saint Francis Medical Center
transforms an underutilized rooftop into functional green space that provides access to and views of nature.

The business case for healing environments

The value of healing gardens and thoughtfully planned healthcare campuses is more than just added amenities. Shorter hospital stays, improved treatment responses, and lower rates of complications can contribute to more efficient care delivery. Intuitive campus circulation can improve patient satisfaction and strengthen community perception, helping organizations to differentiate themselves in an increasingly competitive landscape.

The benefits extend to the people delivering care as well. Physicians, nurses, and hospital staff work in environments defined by long hours, emotional demands, and high rates of burnout. Access to outdoor respite areas and restorative landscapes can contribute to greater job satisfaction and support employee retention.

Taken together, these benefits reinforce an important reality: investing in healing environments isn’t just about creating beautiful places. It’s about creating healthcare campuses that function better for everyone who depends on them—patients, families, clinicians, staff, and the organizations that serve them. The same evidence-based principles that improve the human experience also support stronger operational outcomes

The Wings of Hope Angel Garden at Edward Hospital in Naperville offers moments of respite for staff as well as patients.

The role we play

Everything discussed—from healing gardens and intuitive circulation to evidence-based campus planning—requires collaboration across disciplines. As planners and landscape architects, we don’t design healthcare facilities in isolation. We work alongside architects, engineers, clinicians, administrators, and operations teams to understand how people use a campus today and how it can better support care tomorrow.

Our role is to translate research into places that work. That means balancing clinical needs with human experience, coordinating complex site constraints, and identifying opportunities where the landscape can improve outcomes. Whether we’re developing a campus master plan, designing a healing garden, or reimagining outdoor spaces, every decision is guided by the same question: How can this environment better support the people who rely on it?

Because healing doesn’t happen in just one room, and great healthcare doesn’t begin or end at the front door. It happens throughout the entire journey. And if something as simple as a view through a window can influence recovery, imagine what’s possible when nature becomes an integrative part of the healing process.

Author Bio: As RVi’s Director of Healthcare and Senior Living, Geoff Roehll has led the planning and design of healthcare and senior living landscapes for more than three decades. Coming from a family of healthcare professionals, Geoff has long been passionate about creating environments that support healing through thoughtful planning and evidence-based landscape architecture. In addition to his work with RVi, Geoff was an instructor at the Chicago Botanic Garden’s Therapeutic Garden Certificate Program and regularly shares his expertise at regional and national healthcare conferences.

Blog

Nothing changed. We did: What parks projects have taught me about community value

07/22/2026 Voice Tagged Under: Landscape Architecture, Planning, Public Places

By Tim Bargainer, Senior Vice President at RVi Planning + Landscape Architecture

In 1998 I was sitting with a man who had been the mayor of Round Rock for the better part of a decade and he was still giving the city his time on the transportation board. We were talking about the future of the community, the way people who genuinely care about a place do, and somewhere in the middle of it I brought up the Brushy Creek corridor. I said I thought the corridor could one day be one of the finest park and trail assets the community would ever own.

I believed that completely. I was also, I should admit, the youngest and probably the most idealistic person at the table.

He heard me out. He wasn’t a dismissive man, and this was not a dismissive answer. He told me, more or less, what a lot of people who had actually run a city would have told me then. Parks were good and worthy things. But the town had bigger needs first. It needed water. It needed roads. It needed to keep up with growth that was already coming whether anyone was ready or not. A linear park along the creek was a lovely idea. It just wasn’t essential.

At the time, I didn’t have an answer to that, at least not one that could move him. I believed the creek was worth more than that. I just couldn’t show him why. Not in the terms that decision would have been made in, anyway.

For over twenty-five years I’ve thought about that conversation from time to time and I’ve come to believe it was never really about a park along a creek. It was about a single word. Essential.

Every community has to decide what it can’t do without. That decision comes first, before any budget, and everything else lines up behind it. When he said parks were a quality-of-life item, he wasn’t telling me they had no value, he was telling me where they fell in the order of things. Essential on one side. Everything else on the other. And that idea, however much I loved it, was on the other side.

He wasn’t wrong to see it that way. He was describing the world as nearly everyone understood it then. Water and roads were infrastructure. Parks were what you got to once the essentials were covered. That was the real limit in the room that day, and it wasn’t his imagination or mine. It was the language itself.

A way to say it out loud

One of the first things that really started to change my mind was a study.

An economist named Ray Perryman put numbers to what a lot of us had felt for years and couldn’t prove. He looked at parks and open space and measured what they did to the things a city council actually votes on. Property values. Local spending. The tax base. When the report came out, I remember the feeling more than any single figure. It wasn’t that parks suddenly mattered. We already knew they mattered. It was that, for the first time, the value we’d been sensing had a language a budget could hear.

That’s a smaller thing than a revelation and a larger thing than a statistic. It didn’t change the parks. It changed the conversation. A park could now be argued for in the same terms as a road, in the same room, in front of the same people. Research didn’t create the value of parks. It simply helped us recognize value that had always been there.

Then came a flood

The next thing that really started to change my mind didn’t come from a study. It came from a flood.

I was working on a park that sat low in the floodplain like so many do. Memorial Park, on Brushy Creek. It wasn’t the kind of place you typically build on. It flooded. In the old way of thinking, that was its weakness. The reason it was a park and not something more valuable was that it wouldn’t have been good for much else.

Then a major storm blew through, the kind that used to be fairly rare but just really isn’t anymore. I went to look at it afterward. The park was submerged in water. The trails, the fields, all of it, disappeared beneath a slow brown sheet moving through where the ballgames used to be.

And the Flats, the old neighborhood downstream in downtown Round Rock, was still dry.

I don’t remember how long I stood there, but I remember exactly what changed. I began to truly understand something I had known on paper for years and had never really felt. The park wasn’t leftover land that happened to flood. The park was doing a job. It was holding the storm so the Flats didn’t have to. Every acre of it under water was an acre of somebody’s living room that stayed dry. The thing we’d thought of as “useless land” was the entire point.

No one had funded that park to protect those homes. We’d built it for ballfields and trails, and it had been quietly doing something far larger the whole time, without being asked and without being thanked. I had spent years making the case for parks on the basis of what people could do in them. Standing at the edge of that water, I started to understand them by what they do for us whether we ask them to or not.

Seeing the whole picture

After that, I noticed I started asking different questions.

I stopped asking only what was in a park and started asking what it was part of. A stand of old trees stopped being landscaping and became shade over a Texas summer that gets longer every year, which is another way of saying it became public health. A trail stopped being a place to jog and became a way for a kid to get to school without crossing four lanes of traffic. None of this was new. The trees had always thrown shade. The path had always gone from one place to another. What changed was that I finally saw them as part of how a community works, instead of nice things set on top of it.

Looking back, I couldn’t tell you the day my perspective actually changed. It happened gradually, almost without me noticing.

Early on I thought in terms of projects. A park here. A trail there. Each one its own thing, argued on its own terms, defended in its own line of the budget. Over time I stopped seeing them that way. A park isn’t one thing doing one job. It’s a piece of ground doing a dozen jobs at once, most of which nobody is counting. It cools the air and holds the water and moves the children and lifts the houses around it and gives a place its name, all at the same time.

When I say we learned to value these places differently, I don’t mean the parks became more important. I mean our understanding became larger. Recreation was still there. We simply began to recognize that these same places could strengthen our economy, protect our neighborhoods, improve our health, restore habitat, and quietly hold communities together in ways we hadn’t fully appreciated.

Seeing it differently

If I could sit with that man again, I don’t think I’d tell him he was wrong. I don’t think he was.

He asked the right question. What can a growing town afford, and what actually counts as essential? That question never goes away. Every community has to answer it, in every generation, with whatever understanding it happens to have at the time. What’s changed since 1998 isn’t the question. It’s the size of the answer. We know more now, because floods and heat and studies and over twenty-five years of paying attention have taught us more. An idea that couldn’t cross the line into essential back then can cross it easily today, and nobody at the table would blink.

The Brushy Creek Regional Trail came a couple of years after that conversation, and today it’s still evolving. I don’t say that as a victory. I say it because it’s true, and because it makes the point better than any argument I could build. Nothing about the creek changed. We did.

Which leaves me with a harder thought, if the worth of that creek was real long before we had the words to defend it, then there is almost certainly something we undervalue right now for the very same reason. Something already doing quiet work for our communities that we haven’t yet learned to measure, or even to name. I don’t know what it is. That’s the point. He couldn’t see the full worth of the creek, and I’m not at all sure I can see whatever the creek is now.

A hopeful lesson

So I try to hold my certainty a little more loosely than I once did.

The parks never changed. The creek corridor was worth exactly what it was worth on the afternoon I first brought it up. What changed was us. We learned, slowly and usually the hard way, to recognize what these places had been giving us all along. When I sit with that, it strikes me as a hopeful thing. It means a community is capable of understanding more than it once did. It means the next generation will inherit a wider idea of value than we did and will hand down a wider one still.

Nothing changed. We did.

Tim Bargainer has spent over thirty years working with communities as a planner and landscape architect. These essays are his attempt to think out loud about how we come to understand the value of the places we share. You can find more of Tim’s essays here Tim Bargainer | Substack

Blog

Project Spotlight: Elizabeth Morse Genius Children’s Garden

07/14/2026 Project Spotlight Tagged Under: Landscape Architecture, Planning, Public Places

Creating lifelong connections with nature through immersive play at the historic Garfield Park Conservatory

For more than a century, the Garfield Park Conservatory has provided Chicago residents with a place to experience nature, regardless of the season. In an urban neighborhood with limited access to green space, the Conservatory serves as an urban oasis and beloved community resource, welcoming visitors year-round to explore and learn.

For children, the most meaningful connections with nature often come through experience, not just observation. Building on that mission, the Elizabeth Morse Genius Children’s Garden blends environmental education, inclusive play, and immersive storytelling in an indoor play environment that invites children and families to engage with nature firsthand.

Housed within the Garfield Park Conservatory’s century-old glass exterior, among acres of exotic botanical environments, the Children’s Garden challenged our designers to balance delicate architectural preservation with universal accessibility, all while accounting for tropical climate conditions in the heart of the Midwest.

Environmental learning through play

When children and families arrive at the Garden, they’re welcomed into a vibrant world of discovery and movement. More than just a playground, the experience reimagines the Conservatory through the eyes of a child, where climbing, exploring, creating, and imagining become pathways to learning about the natural world.

Learning came first. Before designing the play elements, before navigating the challenges of building within a historic glass structure, the RVi team worked alongside the Conservatory’s education staff to define a set of educational objectives for every garden room that visitors would encounter, and then create the experiences through active play, sensory exploration, art, and interpretive, interactive exhibits.

“We had to think about what we wanted kids to learn, and that helped us frame the experiences for each space,” says Lacey Lawrence, Director at RVi.

The resulting play experiences were woven into a plant palette created by RVi and sourced from across the U.S., creating learning opportunities that felt inseparable from the surrounding gardens.

Visitors learn about plant roots, ecosystems, soil types, and insects by digging in soil, examining underground cross-sections, and crawling through an underground tunnel in the Beneath the Surface area. The Curiosity Canopy invites children to gain an elevated view of the Conservatory gardens by climbing a net structure 20 feet in the air and engaging with others. The Understory section encourages gross motor skills while teaching about the movement of vines and plant support systems with a spiral caterpillar slide and a pitcher plant perch. For quieter moments, the Arbor Alcove provides a calming space where children can recharge before continuing their exploration.

Nature-inspired play elements complement the botanical surroundings and blur the line between play environment and conservatory, where oversized fungi, fallen logs, giant leaves, and custom play structures like the “High-biscus Climber”—modeled after the hibiscus flower—connect children and families with the landscape.

These are just a few examples of more than 30 individual learning objectives and play activities spread across six separate garden rooms and organized around a central Base Camp Explorer theme. The journey begins the moment visitors set foot in the Children’s Garden, equipped with maps and tools for the adventure. And with free, year-round access to the tropical environments you wouldn’t typically find in Chicago, the journey and learning can continue indefinitely.

Building within a living landmark

Originally constructed in 1908, the Garfield Park Conservatory is an iconic Chicago landmark designed by renowned landscape architect Jens Jensen. As one of the largest and most recognizable conservatories in the nation, it pioneered Jensen’s vision of “landscape art under glass.”

Today, it stands as a beloved community destination, providing year-round access to more than two acres of tropical indoor gardens. With a glass canopy reaching 65 feet at its peak, designing play environments within the dense gardens presented unique challenges to the RVi team. And building it within a historic, glass-paneled structure added a new layer of complexity.

“Working inside a living historic landmark is very different than designing a typical park or playground,” says Lawrence. “We had to think beyond the play environment itself and consider how every decision would affect the building, the gardens, and the visitor experience.”

Typical demolition methods weren’t an option. “We couldn’t touch the building at all, and historic buildings weren’t designed for modern construction equipment, so we had to get creative,” Lawrence explains. In addition to protecting the building, this meant preserving the delicate plant life within the Conservatory. With construction occurring through winter in Chicago, exposure to the harsh temperatures could have been catastrophic.

To access the interior, the team built a temperature-controlled enclosure for staging, while crews carefully navigated the space constraints of the landmark structure.

In addition to its impacts on construction methods, the high-humidity climate meant designing an indoor play environment to outdoor specifications. The moisture can accelerate degradation and create slippery, unsafe play surfaces for children.

“We essentially had to design for the outdoors, indoors,” explains Lawrence.

This required careful selection of materials, finishes, and hardware that could withstand constant moisture, resist corrosion, and provide safe footing for children in a tropical environment. Every detail was evaluated for long-term durability while remaining visually consistent with the Conservatory’s lush, historic setting.

Designed for every child

Garfield Park represents a historically underserved community where continued investment in public spaces and community amenities plays an important role in supporting residents and families. With growing research demonstrating that access to nature supports physical, psychological, and social well-being, the Conservatory offers free admission 365 days a year for Chicago residents, providing a place where families can connect with nature and one another.

The Conservatory believes that access to nature is a fundamental right. The Children’s Garden furthers this mission by engaging the younger generations through accessible, inclusive, and culturally relevant play experiences. It offers opportunities for children of all cognitive, sensory, and physical abilities to explore, learn, and discover together, ensuring every family can participate in the wonder of the Conservatory.

“It was important to the Conservatory to be leaders in inclusive nature-based play,” said Lawrence. “Every component of the space considered accessibility. Our goal was to create a place where every child feels welcome.” A dedicated sensory-friendly area and wheelchair-accessible spiral ramp are among the most visible features, but inclusive design decisions are woven throughout the facility—from the colors and fonts on signage to the layout of pathways, play opportunities, and seating areas that support a wide range of physical, cognitive, and sensory needs.

Inspiring lifelong connection with nature

The Elizabeth Morse Children’s Garden at the Garfield Park Conservatory opened its doors to the public in May 2026.

“It’s so rewarding to see the smiles, hear the laughter, and watch families make the space their own,” says Lawrence. “When you spend years designing something like this, you hope it resonates. Seeing the Conservatory’s vision come to life—and the community embracing it—is what makes the project so meaningful.”

Every child who climbs into the canopy, discovers an unfamiliar plant, or simply spends an afternoon immersed in nature leaves with something more valuable than a memory. They leave with a relationship to the natural world. And for many families, that’s exactly where lifelong curiosity begins.

Photography: Scott Hargis Photography www.scotthargisphoto.com

Blog

Why the best destination resorts let the land inform the design 

06/30/2026 Voice Tagged Under: Hospitality + Entertainment, Land Planning, Landscape Architecture, Planning

By RVI’s Alex Fenech, ASLA, Vice President, Coral Springs, Florida and Brett Allen Park, Vice President, Costa Mesa, California

RVi’s Vice Presidents, Alex Fenech, FASLA, and Brett Allen Park have more than four decades of experience shaping hospitality destinations worldwide. Their work has ranged from luxury resorts and branded residences to destination entertainment districts, theme parks, waterfront developments, and projects for some of the world’s most recognizable hospitality brands, including Marriott, The EDITION Hotel West Hollywood, Rosewood, Sheraton, Hilton, and Disney. Through these experiences, they have learned a simple but often overlooked truth: the most authentic and enduring destinations emerge when developers allow the land to lead the vision.

Hospitality developers are not simply creating buildings. They are creating memories, emotions, and experiences that guests will carry with them long after they leave.

That responsibility becomes even more complex when a project is located in an environmentally sensitive area. Whether along a vulnerable coastline, within a wetland system, near critical wildlife habitat, or in a water-constrained environment, developers often face a familiar question: How do we overcome the site’s constraints?

In our experience, that question often leads projects in the wrong direction.

Between us, we have spent more than four decades planning and designing hospitality destinations across North America, the Caribbean, the Middle East, Asia, and Australia. Our work has included luxury resorts, branded residences, convention destinations, theme parks, golf communities, and mixed-use hospitality environments for some of the world’s most recognized brands and operators. Across that work, one lesson has remained constant: the most memorable destinations are not imposed upon the land. They are discovered through it.

The hospitality industry is experiencing a fundamental shift. Guests increasingly seek authentic, place-based experiences. Investors are prioritizing long-term resilience. Operators are demanding higher performance standards. At the same time, environmental systems are becoming increasingly important to permitting, financing, operations, and long-term asset value.

We believe the environment is often our greatest opportunity. When resilience, ecology, guest experience, and operational performance are considered together from the beginning, developers can create destinations that are more authentic, more memorable, and ultimately more valuable.

This snorkel lagoon showcases the Bahamas’ natural beauty, where protected coastal ecosystems create unforgettable experiences both above and below the waterline.

Let the land inform the design

Every site tells a story.

Too often, hospitality projects begin with room counts, density targets, parking requirements, arrival sequences, and predetermined programming. The design team is then tasked with fitting those elements onto the site as efficiently as possible.

We believe the process should work in reverse.

The most successful destinations begin by understanding the environmental systems that make a place unique. Climate, topography, hydrology, vegetation, wildlife, viewsheds, cultural history, and ecological relationships should inform the design from the outset.

Some of the most meaningful lessons we have learned have come from projects where environmental conditions have fundamentally changed the development approach. Wetlands altered circulation patterns. Wildlife corridors influenced where development could occur. Shoreline conditions reshaped programming decisions. Natural view corridors dictated the placement of guest amenities.

In nearly every case, the final outcome was stronger because of those constraints, not despite them.

The hospitality industry often speaks about creating a sense of place, yet many destinations still begin with a generic development formula and attempt to adapt it to the site. That approach frequently results in experiences that feel interchangeable.

The projects that stand apart are those that embrace their environmental context.

Sea turtle nesting beaches remind us that protecting natural systems preserves experiences and ecological processes that cannot be recreated once they’re lost.

Great guest experiences are rooted in environmental authenticity

Hospitality is fundamentally different from other forms of development.

A guest does not choose a destination because it has the most efficient parking lot or the highest density. They choose it because of how it makes them feel.

The most successful hospitality brands understand this. Whether working with luxury operators, branded residences, boutique hotels, or destination resorts, we consistently see one common expectation: create an experience that guests cannot find anywhere else.

Today’s travelers are increasingly seeking immersion, authenticity, and connection to nature. They want experiences that feel rooted in place. They want to discover something unique, not something replicated.

That might mean observing turtle nesting activity along a protected shoreline. It could mean experiencing a dark sky free from light pollution. It may be a boardwalk through a mangrove ecosystem, views across preserved wetlands, or the sounds of native wildlife rather than mechanical equipment.

These environmental conditions are often treated as development limitations. In reality, they frequently become a destination’s most valuable amenities.

At RVi, we spend significant time thinking about how guest experiences, operational performance, and environmental stewardship intersect. Successful hospitality design requires more than beautiful spaces. It requires careful consideration of arrival sequences, pedestrian circulation, service access, maintenance operations, outdoor programming, wellness experiences, food and beverage environments, and brand expectations.

When done successfully, guests leave with memories that could only have been created in that location. Those memories become the foundation of a destination’s identity and long-term success.

Resilience, ecology, and business performance are no longer separate conversations

For years, resilience was something we talked about primarily in terms of risk. It meant protecting property from storms, flooding, or other environmental threats. While those concerns remain important, we’ve come to see resilience as something much bigger. Today, it influences permitting, insurance, operations, guest expectations, and ultimately the long-term value of a destination.

While much of our work focuses on hospitality destinations, some of the strongest examples of these planning principles can be found in master-planned communities. Resort amenities, clubhouses, waterfront experiences, trail systems, wellness spaces, and gathering places are often woven into larger communities, making the lessons learned from community planning directly applicable to destination development.

Our colleagues Alexis Crespo, Vice President of Planning, and Sabrina McCabe, Director of Landscape Architecture in RVi’s Bonita Springs office have helped shape many of these planning principles through projects like Babcock Ranch and Silverstrand in Southwest Florida, bringing a deep understanding of how environmental systems can create stronger communities. Their work demonstrates that sustainability begins long before the first building is designed. It starts with understanding how a site naturally functions and allowing those systems to guide planning decisions from day one.

Although Babcock Ranch is a master-planned community rather than a hospitality destination, its planning approach offers valuable lessons for any project rooted in environmentally sensitive land. Instead of forcing the landscape to fit a development program, the planning team allowed the site’s natural systems to shape the community. Wetlands, drainage patterns, wildlife habitat, and open space became the framework for development—not constraints to overcome.

Babcock Ranch demonstrated the value of that approach during Hurricane Ian. While many surrounding communities experienced widespread flooding and prolonged power outages, the town remained largely operational because years of thoughtful planning respected the site’s natural hydrology, preserved its environmental systems, and invested in resilient infrastructure from the outset. It serves as a powerful reminder that resilience isn’t achieved through a single design feature—it’s the cumulative result of hundreds of planning decisions made with the land, not against it.

That same philosophy is evident at Silverstrand, an 800-acre master-planned community in northeast Lee County. Under Alexis’ planning leadership, the team implemented a density incentive strategy that clustered development in exchange for restoring former agricultural land with native Florida vegetation. More than 60 percent of the site was permanently conserved, including over 300 acres of restored upland habitat strategically located to reconnect wetland systems and buffer neighboring rural properties. Working alongside Alexis, Sabrina’s landscape architecture expertise helped transform those conservation areas into ecological assets that strengthened the community’s identity while enhancing long-term environmental performance.

When ecological systems become part of the design rather than something the design works around, resilience, guest experience, operational performance, and long-term value reinforce one another. That’s the kind of planning we believe will define the next generation of destination development.

Babcock Ranch illustrates how thoughtful planning can work with natural systems, creating a community where resilient infrastructure, native landscapes, and everyday experiences are shaped by the land.

The most memorable destinations are shaped by the land itself

If there is one lesson our experience has reinforced, it’s that the most memorable destinations are often the ones shaped by the character of the land itself. Environmental systems are opportunities to create places with a stronger sense of identity, deeper connections to nature, and experiences that simply couldn’t exist anywhere else.

Whether we’re planning a luxury resort, a branded residential community, a convention destination, or an amenity-rich master-planned community, our approach remains the same. Every site has its own story, shaped by its ecology, history, and natural systems. Our role as designers (and planners) is to understand those qualities and translate them into places that enrich the guest experience, support long-term operations, and remain resilient for generations.

Hospitality is ultimately about creating places people remember. In our experience, the destinations that leave the greatest impression are those that celebrate the character of the land, creating experiences that feel authentic, enduring, and uniquely connected to their surroundings.

Blog

Esplanade at Red Rock: Resort living reimagined in Las Vegas

06/17/2026 Project Spotlight Tagged Under: Community Development, Land Planning, Landscape Architecture, Planning

Taylor Morrison’s signature Esplanade communities are known for bringing resort-style living to residents’ front doors. With a deep commitment to wellness and social connections, the communities offer a host of upscale amenities tailored to the markets they serve. With its emphasis on golf courses, culinary experiences, and active living, the Esplanade brand has thrived in Florida’s tropical environment and along the East Coast and is now expanding into new regional markets.

With sights set on Las Vegas, Taylor Morrison partnered with RVi to reinterpret the Esplanade experience for the Mojave Desert.

Perched above the Las Vegas Valley and framed by views of Red Rock Canyon, Esplanade at Red Rock called for more than simply replicating a successful formula. The challenge was to translate a hospitality-driven lifestyle brand to a dramatically different setting defined by rugged topography, desert landscapes, and a culture shaped by entertainment and outdoor recreation.

Reimagining a lifestyle brand for the Mojave Desert

Esplanade communities are more than just amenities. They reflect a lifestyle centered on wellness, purpose, and vitality. They invite residents to share the resort experience right in their community, fostering social connection at every opportunity. This brand identity is well established in Florida and East Coast markets, where the tropical climate and relatively flat topography lend themselves to golf courses, spacious trails, and tropical plant palettes.

With Esplanade at Red Rock marking the brand’s first entry into a true desert environment, the design team needed to preserve the essence of Esplanade while responding to a different climate and landscape.

“We knew we weren’t trying to make Las Vegas look like Florida. Our goal as designers was to adapt the experience in a way that felt authentic to the Mojave Desert,” says Jillian Hagen, Senior Project Manager with RVi.

Based in RVi’s Scottsdale, Arizona office, Hagen and RVi team members have worked extensively on communities in Las Vegas and throughout the Southwest region. This brought invaluable insights to the collaboration with Taylor Morrison, the Esplanade team, and RVi’s East Coast team members, who have been closely involved with previous Esplanade developments. Bringing together those perspectives—deep familiarity with Esplanade and knowledge of the local landscape and market—proved to be a successful combination.

The brand adapted in several ways. Color palettes were adjusted to reflect the local stone and rock formations. Materials followed suit, utilizing local stone in the entry monument and climate-resilient plantings to sustain efficient watering practices.

Hagen and RVi team members also visited existing Esplanade communities as part of a lifestyle brand immersion to gain a deeper understanding of the programming, hospitality, and resident expectations.

But understanding the brand was only part of the equation. Translating that experience to Southern Nevada required the team to look beyond established templates and allow the landscape itself to shape the community’s expression.

Designing with the landscape

The design team went beyond simply replicating other Esplanade communities and reinterpreted the brand through the lens of the Mojave Desert, using the site’s terrain, views, and natural character to create a distinctly Southwestern resort lifestyle.

“We kept the elements of their program, but we couldn’t use it as a mix-and-match set of pieces that you simply move to another location,” Hagen says. “It had to respond to the site and the region.”

Esplanade at Red Rock sits atop a dramatic canyon setting, a departure from the relatively flat topography of many Florida and East Coast communities. With up to 30 feet of grade change, the site’s topography challenged design teams to implement retaining walls and terraced construction familiar to the region, while leveraging the elevation as an asset for preserving sightlines.

Grading and retaining systems work with the site’s dramatic topography, transforming steep desert slopes into buildable terraces while preserving the elevated views that define the Esplanade at Red Rock experience.

“There’s a lot of elevation in Vegas, and the residential areas away from the Strip can have amazing city views. We had to preserve those sightlines while still creating comfort, shade, and a sense of place,” says Hagen.

The site’s thoughtful layout and use of terraced construction gives many residences a breathtaking view in a “stadium seating” format to minimize obstructions. By embracing the terrain, the design transformed a technical challenge into a defining feature of the community experience. Creating a stronger sense of arrival while prioritizing views offers residents a daily connection to the surrounding landscape, from Red Rock Canyon to the Las Vegas skyline.

Strategic siting and terracing homes preserved sightlines for residents looking over the Las Vegas Valley and the picturesque city skyline.

Designing for the desert also meant rethinking comfort. Rather than relying on the lush landscapes common in East Coast communities, the team carefully considered where residents would gather, pause, and move throughout the site. Trees, structures, and landscape elements were strategically positioned to provide relief from the desert sun, with sustainable plant palettes to withstand low-water and drought conditions.

Amenities at the heart of the Esplanade experience

The amenity campus at the heart of Esplanade at Red Rock offers a dynamic set of experiences centered on wellness, recreation, and meaningful connections.

While the landscape shaped the community’s physical framework, the Esplanade lifestyle ultimately comes to life through the experience residents share within it. Esplanade at Red Rock centers those experiences around an amenity campus designed for wellness, recreation, and meaningful connection.

A 10,000-square-foot clubhouse anchors the campus and provides several signature Esplanade wellness amenities. An indoor spa includes a cold plunge, sauna, contrast therapy and more, where residents can relax and unwind in comfort. Next door, a fitness center provides state-of-the-art exercise equipment, while a longevity lounge offers additional relaxation and wellness-focused programming. A pool outside strengthens indoor-outdoor connections and the feeling of everyday resort living.

Recreation and active living continue throughout the campus. Pickleball and bocce courts create opportunities for friendly competition, while a golf simulator in the clubhouse offers residents a year-round outlet for practice and play. A dog park gives four-legged companions room to run and socialize, and an event lawn provides multi-use space for community gatherings and outdoor entertainment.

Equally important are the spaces designed simply to bring people together. Fireside seating areas, a Barrel House Bistro, and an expansive event lawn create settings for culinary experiences, community gatherings, and outdoor entertainment. Quieter moments of connection were considered through features such as a butterfly garden, welcoming pollinators and giving residents a casual space to pause, reflect, and engage with the landscape.

Together, these amenities capture the lifestyle of wellness and connection that runs throughout the Esplanade brand.

A scalable framework for future expansion

Designing a successful community requires site- and market-specific awareness. Staying true to an established lifestyle identity demands an equally deep understanding of the principles that define it. At Esplanade at Red Rock, Taylor Morrison and RVi bridged the gap through close collaboration, blending national brand expertise with regional insight to craft a community that feels both authentically Esplanade and unmistakably Las Vegas.

The approach to collaboration among geographically dispersed teams brought each team member’s strengths to the surface while establishing workflows for future expansion into new markets. Hagen believes that willingness to adapt ultimately became one of the project’s greatest strengths. “We weren’t reinventing Esplanade,” she says. “We were helping it evolve.”

Rather than simply replicating a brand experience, the process demonstrated how successful lifestyle brands can evolve to preserve the experience that residents value while embracing the unique character of place.

Blog

RVi Planning + Landscape Architecture promotes Ryan Binkowski to President

06/09/2026 People Tagged Under: Campuses, Community Development, Hospitality + Entertainment, Land Planning, Landscape Architecture, Outdoor Hospitality, Planning, Public Places, Urban Design, Urban Planning

June 9, 2026 (Austin, TX) – RVi Planning + Landscape Architecture (RVi) is pleased to announce the appointment of Ryan Binkowski as President. Binkowski, who served as Senior Vice President of Operations, has assumed the role following the retirement of longtime President Chris Crawford.

Binkowski brings extensive operational leadership experience and a deep understanding of RVi’s business, culture, and clients. Since joining the company, he has played a key role in driving operational excellence, strengthening team performance, and supporting strategic growth initiatives.

“Ryan’s leadership, vision, and commitment to our people and clients make him the right choice to lead RVi into its next chapter as the best outdoor experience design studio in the country,” said Crawford. “His track record of delivering results and fostering collaboration positions the company for continued success.”

Binkowski said he is honored to step into the role. “I’m excited to build on the strong foundation that Chris and our team have established to ‘Design a Better World’.” RVi has an exceptional group of professionals, and I look forward to working together to continue delivering outstanding service to our clients and partners.”

Over the course of his 40-year career, Crawford has been instrumental in RVi’s growth and success. His leadership and dedication have helped shape the firm’s culture, strengthen its reputation, and guide its continued evolution.

RVi remains committed to delivering innovative solutions and exceptional service as it enters this new leadership chapter.

At RVi, we advocate for nature, inspire creativity, tell captivating stories, and forge strong relationships to create places with staying power. Through creative strategy and design, we lead integrated teams to envision the world’s next great communities, public places, campuses, and hospitality experiences. RVi is a part of the Atwell Family of Companies.

Blog

Chris Crawford’s next chapter: Retirement

05/29/2026 People Tagged Under: Campuses, Community Development, Hospitality + Entertainment, Land Planning, Landscape Architecture, Outdoor Hospitality, Planning, Public Places, Urban Design, Urban Planning

After decades of leadership and lasting impact, Chris Crawford is stepping into retirement and closing an extraordinary chapter at RVi. Over the course of his career, Chris has helped shape not only the firm’s growth, but also the culture and relationships that define it today. We sat down with him to reflect on his journey, the moments that mattered most, and the perspective he’s gained along the way.

How did you start working at RVi?

I joined RVi as a new college graduate in May 1986. The firm actually taught my senior design class at Texas A&M, and I was hired through that connection while I was still in school. I graduated on a Friday and started the following Monday. I still remember my first-day outfit: a mauve shirt and matching mauve pants.

Early on, I had the opportunity to work closely with the firm’s founder, Bob Richardson, and build a strong relationship with him. He became a mentor to me. After some time, I left RVi to gain experience at another firm, but seven years later, I returned. I’ve now spent the last 32 years here.

It’s a good reminder of how important relationships are. You never know when your paths might cross again or where those connections might lead.

What moments from your time at RVi stand out most to you?

Leaving RVi is not easy. This place has shaped my life in ways I will always carry with me.

I met my wife here, which makes this chapter even more meaningful, and even harder to step away from. But what I will remember most are the people. The relationships built here have defined my career and made it truly special.

Many clients and colleagues have become lifelong friends. Some of those friendships go back to when I started my career 40 years ago, and even now, we can pick up right where we left off. Even if we haven’t spoken in a long time, the moment we reconnect, it feels like no time has passed.

That sense of connection is what makes RVi different, and it is what I will carry forward.

What was your favorite or most memorable project?

I’ve had the chance to travel widely and work on a variety of meaningful projects. I’m proud of what we’ve created. Our work influences how people live, gather, and play, and I’ve been able to visit these places and see that impact firsthand. What we design becomes part of people’s everyday lives and some of their most meaningful moments. Our communities are the backdrop for first birthdays, graduations, and countless everyday experiences.

We’re not just designing projects; we’re helping shape communities in lasting ways. That’s what made every new project something to look forward to.

Looking back on your time as President, what is one thing you are most proud of?

I’m incredibly proud of how much RVi has grown. Not long ago, we were a firm of about 25 people. Today, we’re nearly 200 strong. Along the way, we’ve expanded our geographic reach and built meaningful relationships with clients and communities across the country.

What matters most is how we’ve grown. We’ve stayed true to who we are. Our creativity, our vision, and our genuine desire to shape the world around us remain at the core of everything we do. As we’ve grown, we’ve stayed grounded in the values that defined us early on, and that balance is something I’m especially proud of.

What excites you most about the future of RVi?

What excites me most is the depth of talent we’ve built, especially as we’ve brought several great firms into the fold. The people who have joined us bring new perspectives, fresh ideas, and a level of creativity that continues to push us forward.

We’re in a position now where we’re not only expanding geographically, but also expanding what we’re capable of as a firm. We’re continuing to lean into innovation, explore new ideas, and take on projects in areas we haven’t worked in before. That combination of experience and new energy is incredibly exciting, and it opens the door to possibilities we’ve never had before.

What is your advice to those just starting out their career in landscape architecture?

Focus on building relationships. Your career is about much more than good work and design. It’s about getting to know your clients, understanding what matters to them, and developing genuine, lasting connections. Those relationships are often the most meaningful part of what we do, and they shape not only the success of a project but the experience of working on it.

What do you plan on doing with your time now that you are retiring?

I’m looking forward to spending more time with my wife, children, and grandchildren. I’m also excited to enjoy some of the things I love, including traveling, fishing, painting, and spending time on our ranch.

Blog

Flexible zoning and entitlement strategies: How to create opportunities for master planned communities to adapt and evolve over time

05/28/2026 Voice Tagged Under: Community Development, Land Planning, Landscape Architecture, Planning

By Mark Reddie, Regional Vice President, Southwest at RVi

Over the course of my career, I have spent more than 30 years helping communities across the Southwest plan for growth through comprehensive planning, annexation, rezoning, and subdivision design. More recently, I have had the opportunity to work alongside Chris Baker, RVi Principal in Reno, whose decades of experience in entitlement strategy and community planning have added valuable perspective to our work on large-scale master planned communities. Together, we have focused on helping clients balance long-term vision, market realities, infrastructure coordination, and community expectations in ways that allow communities to evolve successfully over time.

Throughout our work, one question continues to guide our approach: how can a community planned today continue to thrive decades from now?

It is a question rooted in the realities of modern growth. Housing demands evolve, infrastructure priorities shift, and market conditions fluctuate, developers and municipalities are being challenged to plan communities that can respond to long-term change without losing their identity. For large scale master planned communities, this requires more than securing zoning approvals. It requires an entitlement strategy that creates a durable framework for flexibility, predictability, design quality, and community character.

Through our work across the U.S., particularly in the southwest, including the Solstice Foothills community in Goodyear, Arizona, Chris and I have seen first-hand how flexible zoning, a thoughtful entitlement strategy, and meaningful community engagement can help create stronger, more resilient development outcomes. The most successful long-term planning frameworks balance adaptability and certainty in ways that allow communities to evolve responsibly over time.

Entitlement strategy is no longer just about approvals

For decades, entitlement strategy was often treated as a regulatory milestone, a necessary step to secure zoning approvals and move a development project forward. I believe that approach is becoming increasingly outdated.

Today, the strongest communities are planned with enough structure to create certainty and enough flexibility to evolve with the people, markets and public priorities that will shape them over time.

That philosophy shaped nearly every major decision we made on Solstice Foothills. From the beginning, we recognized that housing demand, infrastructure needs, development economics, and market conditions would continue to shift throughout the life of the project. The entitlement strategy needed to acknowledge that reality instead of assuming the future would remain static.

At RVi, we work at the intersection of land planning, entitlement strategy, community engagement and community design. Increasingly, that work also begins before a project officially enters the entitlement process.

As Chris often points out, “RVi is frequently involved during the due diligence and purchase agreement stages, helping developers, brokers, property owners, and investors align on transaction timing, infrastructure planning, and entitlement strategy early enough to create realistic and achievable development outcomes.”

That perspective allows us to think beyond immediate zoning approvals and focus on how communities will adapt, create long-term value, and maintain a strong identity over decades of implementation.

In my experience, flexible zoning works best when paired with strong planning principles, clear community expectations, and targeted safeguards that build trust over time.

A case study in flexible entitlement strategy

One of the biggest misconceptions in land development is that entitlement strategy is simply about securing the maximum number of units, density, or intensity for a project. In reality, particularly for master planned communities, entitlement strategy is one of the most important tools for establishing a framework for long-term success. A strong entitlement strategy can shape flexibility, design quality, infrastructure coordination, regulatory safeguards, and the ability of a community to respond to changing market conditions over time. That became clear early in the planning process for Solstice Foothills.

The original planned area development (PAD) for the property (formerly known as Rio 1900) had been approved nearly 20 years earlier and reflected a very different housing market and development environment. The challenge was not simply updating the zoning code but creating a flexible entitlement framework that could remain viable over a much longer development timeline.

We recognized early that a conventional zoning approach would likely create limitations over time. Traditional zoning districts tend to separate land uses rigidly and assume the market will remain relatively stable. But large-scale communities do not develop all at once. They evolve over decades as housing preferences change, product-types shift, infrastructure priorities adapt, and economic conditions fluctuate. Rigid zoning frameworks often struggle to accommodate those realities.

Chris describes this approach as “market proofing” entitlement strategy; creating frameworks resilient enough to respond to changing development conditions while still preserving the long-term vision for a community.

As he puts it, “Every planner has a ‘could have been’ story. While we cannot plan for everything, it is our responsibility to use the tools available to ensure good ideas and strong projects have every opportunity to be realized.”

The 7 Land Use Character Areas (LUCA) that establish the framework for a comprehensive and flexible community plan in Solstice Foothills.

Planning in the grey

Rather than assigning every parcel to a fixed zoning category from the outset, we used a Land Use Character Area, or LUCA, framework. This approach focused more on the intended character, function, and compatibility of different areas rather than locking each location into one permanent zoning category.

In many ways, flexible zoning acknowledges an important reality in planning.

As Chris explains, “Land use and zoning code is black and white, but good planning is often done in the grey.”

Regional plans, zoning ordinances, and municipal policies often move slower than the market itself. As a result, innovative housing types, mixed-use concepts, and evolving development trends may not be fully anticipated by existing code frameworks.

The LUCA framework helped address that challenge by creating overlapping opportunities for residential development, commercial uses, civic spaces, parks, trails, and open space systems while still maintaining logical transitions and compatibility throughout the community.

This approach preserved a clear long-term vision while giving future phases enough flexibility to respond to market demand, infrastructure timing, and community needs.

Flexibility requires guardrails

Flexible zoning does not mean uncertainty, lack of accountability, or an open-ended development program. In many cases, flexible entitlement strategies require more thoughtful planning and more detailed safeguards than conventional zoning approaches.

To make flexibility workable, we paired it with clear expectations around:

Open space connectivity
Integrated trail systems
Infrastructure planning
Design quality
Transition standards between neighborhoods
Compatibility between land uses
Regulatory safeguards

Without those guardrails, flexibility can create uncertainty. With them, it can create resilience, adaptability, and trust.

This balance is especially important for municipalities. Cities need confidence that infrastructure, compatibility, phasing, and implementation will be addressed responsibly. Developers need enough flexibility to respond to changing market conditions, housing preferences, and long-term economic realities.

The strongest entitlement strategies recognize both sides of that equation.

Community engagement strengthens entitlement strategy

One of the most important lessons from Solstice Foothills was how closely community engagement and entitlement strategy intersect.

At public hearings, residents rarely respond to zoning terminology. They respond to outcomes: walkability, parks, buffers, traffic, trails, infrastructure, compatibility, perimeter protections, impacts to property values, and quality of life.

Successful conversations focus less on entitlement language and more on how people will actually experience the community and how it will impact surrounding properties.

Listening first made a significant difference.

During neighborhood outreach, nearby residents expressed concerns about lot transitions and maintaining the character of adjacent neighborhoods. Instead of applying broad restrictions across the entire project, we created targeted regulatory safeguards specific to those perimeter areas.

For example, one neighboring community had 80-foot-wide residential lots backing up to the project site. Residents were concerned about smaller lots directly behind them. In response, we incorporated standards requiring either open space or lots of comparable width along that specific portion of the perimeter.

That level of customization would have been difficult under a more rigid zoning structure.

Throughout the public process, city leaders also emphasized the importance of preserving the site’s connection to the broader identity of Goodyear. During the City Council hearing, one council member noted that the property and its legacy are “so important to the history of Goodyear,” reinforcing the idea that long-term planning must balance future growth with community character.

We have seen similar dynamics on other projects as well. One recent entitlement project, nearby equestrian residents wanted to preserve horse trail access adjacent to the development. By listening carefully, we incorporated a natural-surface multi-use trail along the perimeter. That solution addressed neighborhood concerns while strengthening the project overall. When it came time to present the project for approval to the City Council, the neighbors showed up in support of the project and complemented the team on listening and addressing their concerns.

Those conversations reinforced an important point: flexible zoning is not about doing whatever the project team wants. It is about creating a framework that can strategically respond to community concerns while still meeting the client’s goals and preserving long-term project adaptability.

In many ways, flexibility requires more collaboration, transparency, and trust, not less.

The future of zoning and entitlement strategy

Overly rigid zoning can create weaker communities over time because it assumes the future will look exactly like today. It can also assume that every project across a diverse city should be subject to identical requirements, regardless of context, location, market conditions, or community character.

That assumption becomes increasingly risky on projects with long implementation timelines.

At Solstice Foothills, the entitlement framework was intentionally designed to preserve flexibility while maintaining a cohesive planning vision and community identity.

As Amy Weidman, Vice President of Development at Harvard Investments, explained, “We wanted a framework that could evolve with the market while still maintaining a cohesive vision for the community.”

That mindset shaped the project from the beginning. The LUCA framework, integrated open space systems, evolving housing mix, and phased flexibility would have been significantly more difficult under a conventional zoning structure.

At the same time, municipalities still need certainty around infrastructure, compatibility, and implementation. That tension between certainty and adaptability is where many entitlement conversations now live. Some municipalities are becoming more open to flexible zoning approaches. Others remain cautious, particularly because highly customized zoning districts can become difficult to administer over time. That concern is understandable. Cities are balancing staffing, consistency, infrastructure planning, implementation, and long-term governance responsibilities.

Planning communities that can evolve

At RVi, we have found that the most successful projects integrate community visioning, infrastructure planning, market realities, land planning, and entitlement strategy from the beginning rather than treating them as separate or piecemeal efforts.

When those conversations happen early, projects are better positioned to adapt responsibly without losing their identity.

I believe entitlement frameworks will continue moving toward more performance-based and character-based planning approaches that prioritize outcomes, flexibility, and integrated community design over rigid land use separation.

The communities that endure will not be the ones frozen in time. They will be the ones designed with enough flexibility to evolve while still delivering a strong sense of place, long-term value, and community character.

That is what we set out to accomplish at Solstice Foothills, and it reflects where the future of entitlement strategy is headed.

Blog

Moonlight in the Phoenix suburbs: Linking distinct experiences into one connected community

05/22/2026 Project Spotlight Tagged Under: Community Development, Land Planning, Landscape Architecture, Planning

As the Phoenix metro area continues its rapid expansion, communities in neighboring Pinal County are becoming key destinations for new residential growth. The City of Maricopa has emerged as one of the region’s fastest-growing communities, where thoughtfully planned developments are transforming the landscape and shaping the next chapter of desert living in the Southwest.

To keep pace with demand, speed-to-market matters. But for community developers like our client, Forestar Group, success is measured by more than the number of homes delivered. In a rapidly expanding landscape of new neighborhoods, creating a lasting identity and a community people genuinely connect with is what sets projects apart.

“We really focused on designing something for everyone. Not just a single set of amenities with universal appeal, but actually a specific amenity for each user group, linked together,” says RVi Landscape Architect Katie LaBelle, who has been leading the work since 2020.

Creative differentiation and longevity were priorities from the start at Moonlight, a 489-acre master planned community in Maricopa, Arizona. The site’s transformation from a longstanding dairy operation into a modern, master-planned community reflects a broader shift throughout Maricopa from an agricultural history to rapid regional growth.

RVi was instrumental in helping to process an amendment to modify the site’s General Plan land use designation in the community’s nascency. This change opened the door for a broader mix of residential densities and land uses, creating greater flexibility and creativity in the overall community design. Together, we worked with Forestar to plan, design, and deliver a community that inspires connection and functions as a community, not just a development.

Finding what was missing

Moonlight is anything but ordinary, and the distinction was intentional.

“From the start, knew we were going to have to do something a little bit different,” says LaBelle.

The mix of amenities and housing types was determined through a careful market gap analysis that bridged firsthand observations, market data, and creative vision. Early in the planning and visioning process, LaBelle and the RVi team took to the streets to understand what already existed, and what would set Moonlight apart.

“We started by going out there, touring everything that had been built so far, looking at different communities to see what’s working, what’s not, and where there’s a need,” she recalls.

The research revealed opportunities to create experiences that many nearby communities lacked. Rather than designing off-the-shelf solutions with broad appeal, it was important to bring people together with focused experiences—connected, but distinct.

This approach aligned with the developer’s vision of togetherness, and Moonlight became a place focused on inclusivity and intergenerational connections. With an authentic sense of place captured through market-driven planning, flexible gathering spaces, and a strong sense of place, Moonlight is helping redefine what community-oriented suburban growth can look like in the Sonoran Desert.

Designing a lifestyle framework

A community center without walls. It may sound like a metaphor (an apt one, at that), but at Moonlight, it’s literal.

The central gathering structure was designed with openness in mind, it serves as a multi-use flexible space at the heart of the community. With picnic tables, a state-of-the-art outdoor kitchen, and fans overhead, the community center provides shelter and shade without disconnect. People host parties, neighborhood events, and casual gatherings. The HOA holds meetings there. And it’s located directly adjacent to a wide variety of complementary amenities for each user group, linked by proximity and thematics.

A large, outdoor gas fireplace offers a cozy space for gathering—close enough for parents to watch their children at the nearby shaded play structures, yet distinct enough for adults seeking solitude under the setting desert sun. Nearby, a thoughtfully designed resort-style pool provides a refreshing retreat and social centerpiece for residents throughout the year. An event lawn with artificial grass can adapt to movies in the park, outdoor festivals, or other large gatherings.

The outdoor culture is undeniable at Moonlight, and goes hand-in-hand with wellness, recreation, and active living.

It’s common to see families, cyclists, joggers, and walkers on the miles of interconnected trails weaving through the community. During our recent visits, the newly installed pickleball courts were in near-constant rotation, and the sand volleyball courts still carried the fresh divots of an impromptu match. Soon, an outdoor fitness center with dedicated gym equipment will further expand opportunities for residents to exercise and gather outdoors together.

The amenities and circulation were designed to encourage movement and interaction as part of everyday life rather than isolated experiences.

Maricopa is growing across all ages, demographics, and walks of life. As a new development, Moonlight needed to be welcoming to all. We worked closely with the developer to plan and design lots of varying sizes, with multiple builders lined up to deliver differentiated homes of many shapes, sizes, and price points. The development includes zoning for future mixed-use and commercial development.

“No matter what stage of life you’re in, I think you can find a home and a community here,” says Katie.

Thematics and the basis for a national brand

Beyond planning, design, and amenities, the RVi team worked with Forestar and Made in July, a creative branding agency, to establish the larger thematic identity of the community. During the visioning process, the team explored several thematic directions inspired by the local agricultural history, surrounding desert landscapes, and the nearby mountain ranges visible from the site.

From those explorations, the identity of “Moonlight” emerged.

The branding leaned less on nostalgia and more on the community’s atmosphere, with desert skies, outdoor living, sunset gatherings, and lifestyle tied to the Sonoran environment. A warm color palette and regional iconography became central to the thematic identity.

“The idea was to create a brand that could adapt to different regions while still reflecting a strong sense of place,” says LaBelle.

The color palette runs throughout the amenities and landscape, with placemaking strategies reflecting the distinct brand. Pickleball courts with purple surfacing, logos on the pool, and customized signage and wayfinding coalesce in a unified sense of place.

The Moonlight identity shaped the experience of the community through the landscape itself, organizing the community around interconnected trails linking the distinct recreational and social environments throughout the development. Shade structures in the play area, social hubs, the community center without barriers—these features solidified the identity and vision for the brand.

As Maricopa’s Moonlight continues to evolve, the branding and thematics will be able to scale nationally into a broader development brand strategy adaptable to various regions across the country.

Continuity and long-term vision

Large master planned communities don’t come together all at once. They often evolve in phases over years, sometimes decades, changing with the markets, design teams, contractors, and builders along the way.

For Moonlight, continuity became an important part of the process, with RVi helping to define the vision and protect its coherence throughout multiple phases and counting.

We’ve continued to work diligently throughout implementation, from construction administration and field reviews to materials, lighting, planting, and streetscaping. This collaboration has helped ensure that the original planning principles carried consistently throughout each phase of the growing community.

“Sometimes you see communities start strong in the first phase, and then the theme gets lost and diluted,” says LaBelle. “That’s one thing that didn’t happen here.”

The consistency is visible throughout the development, where trails, gathering spaces, landscaping, signage, and amenities continue reinforcing the same outdoor-oriented identity established during the project’s earliest visioning phases. Rather than feeling pieced together over time, Moonlight maintains a cohesive sense of place as it continues to grow alongside the city around it.

Designing for belonging: What master planned communities and outdoor hospitality teach us about connection

Two worlds, one goal: Connection

Different scales and different rhythms

Layering experiences to build belonging and community

The healing power of place: The science behind healing gardens and better healthcare outcomes

Healing gardens and the theory of supportive design

The healthcare campus as a healing journey

The business case for healing environments

The role we play

Nothing changed. We did: What parks projects have taught me about community value

A way to say it out loud

Then came a flood

Seeing the whole picture

Seeing it differently

A hopeful lesson

Project Spotlight: Elizabeth Morse Genius Children’s Garden

Creating lifelong connections with nature through immersive play at the historic Garfield Park Conservatory

Environmental learning through play

Building within a living landmark

Designed for every child

Inspiring lifelong connection with nature

Why the best destination resorts let the land inform the design

Let the land inform the design

Great guest experiences are rooted in environmental authenticity

Resilience, ecology, and business performance are no longer separate conversations

The most memorable destinations are shaped by the land itself

Esplanade at Red Rock: Resort living reimagined in Las Vegas

Reimagining a lifestyle brand for the Mojave Desert

Designing with the landscape

Amenities at the heart of the Esplanade experience

A scalable framework for future expansion

RVi Planning + Landscape Architecture promotes Ryan Binkowski to President

Chris Crawford’s next chapter: Retirement

How did you start working at RVi?

What moments from your time at RVi stand out most to you?

What was your favorite or most memorable project?

Looking back on your time as President, what is one thing you are most proud of?

What excites you most about the future of RVi?

What is your advice to those just starting out their career in landscape architecture?

What do you plan on doing with your time now that you are retiring?

Flexible zoning and entitlement strategies: How to create opportunities for master planned communities to adapt and evolve over time

Entitlement strategy is no longer just about approvals

A case study in flexible entitlement strategy

Planning in the grey

Flexibility requires guardrails

Community engagement strengthens entitlement strategy

The future of zoning and entitlement strategy

Planning communities that can evolve

Moonlight in the Phoenix suburbs: Linking distinct experiences into one connected community

Finding what was missing

Designing a lifestyle framework

Thematics and the basis for a national brand

Continuity and long-term vision

Why the best destination resorts let the land inform the design 