PLANNING

Featured Project

NFL Stadium District, Clark County

 

RAFI is working as a consultant with Clark County to prepare the land use portion of a Master Plan for the district surrounding the new stadium, currently under construction.

Click here to see the Stadium District Plan. 

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Planning, Landscape and Environmental Design

 

Many architects as design professionals define their roles as bringing unique beauty to the building or structure they’re commissioned to plan and design; context and surroundings are outside and beyond their control.  With RAFI, context and surroundings are not only part of the design issue, they’re a major component of the design solution.  With RAFI’s client projects, before designing for the clients’ needs from the inside out - we analyze and understand what is happening from the outside in.

 

With new buildings in an existing area, it’s important to understand and appreciate the context and influences surroundings possess.  Age, size, height, building materials, solar orientation, and prevailing winds are all important design considerations RAFI factors into its planning. 

 

Even in a remote setting a building or structure is never isolated.  The site soils, topography, geography and climate are always significant drivers of planning and design.  Within the city, it's the trees, shrubbery and flowers that provide shade, moisture in the air, and color for vibrancy. They also help absorb and reflect heat off of building surfaces.  In remote locations, the landscape will shelter pedestrians from strong winds and provide shade. 

 

Planning and landscaping when developed as environmental design elements help connect buildings with nature, including sheltered outdoor assembly areas.  With this in mind, RAFI seeks to moderate the natural extremes of climate and geography to reduce energy and resource demands, improve user comfort, and increase property values.

 

RAFI’s strategic efforts also include:

 

• Increasing outdoor and indoor comfort naturally for users

• Reducing  the heat sink effect produced by solar exposure on hard surfaces

• Stabilizing the landscape to eliminate sheet flooding and erosion

• Keeping seasonal sunlight away from easterly, southerly and westerly building exposures

• Creating natural fire protection

• Reducing outdoor ambient summertime temperatures

• Absorbing air pollution and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere

• Returning carbon to the earth

• Reintegrating nature with the built environment

• Reducing water and energy demands

• Creating seasonal, comfortable outdoor working spaces for employees is far more productive and economical than working indoors.