June eNewsletter

Client Profile: Robert Johnson Discusses Taylor Morrison's new Partnership with the National Wildlife Federation

At RVi, our purpose is to inspire people to be outside and engage in the community around them. We look for opportunities to apply this purpose to all that we do – and occasionally we don’t have to look very far.

Last month, RVi client Taylor Morrison announced a historic partnership with the National Wildlife Federation (NWF) aimed at elevating the homebuilder’s land development and sustainability practices. Taylor Morrison currently owns or controls more than 8,000 acres in or adjacent to protected areas and areas of high biological diversity value. This new initiative seeks to connect homeowners to nature by engaging them in the protection of these sensitive areas.

On the heels of this announcement, we sat down with Robert Johnson, Director of Land Planning and Development for Taylor Morrison’s Phoenix office, to learn more about the partnership with NWF and its impact on our current work.

Looking Back Before Moving Forward: Assessing the Mueller Northwest Greenway

BY AARON CHRISTIAN, PLA

For most projects we undertake at RVi, our contractual involvement ends when the project has been constructed. As designers who take pride in our work, we will often visit the completed project on our own time, but rarely do we have the opportunity to do a thorough re-evaluation of the project a decade later.

We were recently given just this type of opportunity when we were retained by our clients at Catellus to perform an assessment of the Mueller Northwest Greenway, which was the first of the four large parks we designed for the community. This in-depth assessment brought together several members of the original design team – including RVi (landscape architects), Stantec (civil engineers), Architectural Engineers Collaborative (structural engineers), and Bay and Associates (MEP engineers). Together with arborists from The Davey Tree Company and playground consultants from The Recreation Environments Collaborative, this team performed an in-depth analysis of the condition of the park and made recommendations for improvement. This gave our team the opportunity to assess the lifecycle of site furnishings, observe which plant selections were the most successful, reconsider site signage, understand changes in playground safety code, and observe and document many other details.

RVi Clients Win National Gold Nugget Awards

BY KATIE EVANS

Last month, two RVi projects took home coveted Gold Nugget Grand Awards from the Pacific Coast Builder Conference (PCBC). These prestigious design awards recognize those who improve our communities through exceptional concepts in design, planning and development.

The Headwaters master planned community developed by RVi clients Freehold Communities won top honors in the Best Community Land Plan category, edging out many other projects from across the country. RVi President, Chris Crawford, and Dennis Tonsor, Director of Planning, traveled to San Francisco to accept the award. RVi is providing planning and landscape architecture services for the project.

RVi also provided the land plan for Altis in Beaumont, California, winner of the Gold Nugget Grand Award for Best Age Qualified Senior Living Community – For Sale/Rent for their innovative new 55+ lifestyle community development. Appealing to today’s sophisticated 55+ buyer through thoughtful, modern and environmentally friendly design, the grand opening of Altis in the Summer of 2018 marks Pardee Home’s entry into the 55+market.

Congratulations, team!

In Other News

Welcome to RVi!

Madison Dalke has joined the Austin office as a Designer.

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