About Us
Key Personnel:
Jack L. Smyre, PE, AICP – Principal
Elizabeth (Liz) King – Senior Designer
Who We Are:
The Design Response is an urban and land planning design firm founded in 2001 that specializes in collaborative strategic thinking, thoughtful and pragmatic site design, and effective project management of land development applications through complex regulatory and political approval processes.
Staffed and associated with nationally certified professional planners with decades of private practice experience and experienced landscape/hardscape designers and site planners, our primary focus is to assist our clients in making more informed and profitable land development decisions.
We are best when paired with your favorite civil engineering firm as the dedicated strategic site planning and landscape/hardscape design component that focuses solely upon the private development aspects of due diligence and realistic site yield analysis, conceptual and detailed placemaking design, strategic navigation of the regulatory and political review process, detailed site furniture and landscape plans, and overall consultant team coordination.
As experienced generalists, we also provide a separate strategic sounding board for our clients by which the myriad of design choices being made by other project team consultants can be evaulated and coordinated in a thoughtful and collaborative manner.
What We Do:
Initially, we assist our clients in understanding the physical, regulatory, and political setting for their project. We then begin maximizing project value with thoughtful conceptual design exercises that best utilize a site’s assets within a realistic assessment of potential and identified design constraints.
As a component of the design process, we are also simultaneously developing a strategic game plan as to how to navigate the regulatory and political approval process, so as to minimize identified risks and to maximize the odds of success.
We accomplish these objectives with a blend of careful research and analysis, a keen understanding of regulations and processes, and lots of practical experience. We are skilled at working with the public, governmental staffs, and elected local officials, and are able to articulate planning issues to a wide variety of audiences in context-sensitive verbal, written and/or graphical formats. We also excel at solving multi-variable puzzles using a balance of technical competence, creativity, and strategic collaborative thinking.
Our designs are consistently reported as easy to engineer and to build, as they are developed within a seasoned and experienced site planning environment. It is, in fact, not uncommon for The Design Response to recognize significant cost-savings and/or identify opportunities for increased project value as a product of the evolving design and review process that exceeds our professional fee.
Whether you are a new or experienced developer, a commercial broker who is seeking to make a consultant recommendation to your client, or a fellow professional consultant firm seeking a project team member that is proficient in strong conceptual design, eye-catching and effective graphic exhibits, experienced hardscape and landscape design, and the strategic navigation of complex political processes, we would welcome the opportunity to discuss how we can maximize the odds of success for your land development project.
