While with RNL/Charlesgroup, Ron Schafer as Design Director, lead the creative effort to expand the team's design concept and develop a unique architectural centerpiece for this 421.500sm large multi-use development. We specifically focused on the 85,700sm of integrated retail.

 

This was a strategic planning study to help identify the right phased development approach for the site and to determine the right character/ place making principles for the centerpiece retail/public spaces to link to the adjacent mass transit node. A river walk central spine was conceived to tie the district together and to combine with the sustainable infrastructure being developed as a unique feature for the site. We added the heart, a retail entertainment island of a curvilinear form to stand out among the more perpendicular architectural forms surrounding it.

 

Our concept metaphor was of the central spine river as a rope flowing through the project with twists and turns but not actually reaching any "place" along the "river-rope". With our new island as the heart of the development, we metaphorically tied a knot in the rope, adding a needed "place" along the "river-rope" path.