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Join The Urban Collaborative at APA International Division’s World Town Planning Day—an online, free conference on Friday, November 7, from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Eastern. Attend any session and earn AICP CM credits simply by showing up. Our session also carries 1.0 Sustainability & Resilience CM.

REGISTER HERE: https://www.planning.org/international/worldtown/

This year’s theme, “With Planning We Can!”, celebrates how thoughtful planning empowers communities and opens pathways to prosperity. The day will spotlight real projects that deliver impact: getting the right homes in the right places, linking services and infrastructure to where people live, work, and play, partnering with nature to tackle heat and water challenges, and convening multiple stakeholders to co-create better outcomes. The program welcomes success stories and candid lessons from efforts that fell short—because planning is the tool that turns ideas into reality.

Our contribution runs from approximately 3:45 to 4:45 p.m. Eastern: One Plan, Many Cultures: Co-Creating Defense Communities Across Borders. Drawing on more than two decades of work across Eastern Europe and the Pacific—from pre-war Ukraine to Germany, the UK, Luxembourg, Greece, Singapore, Korea, and Japan—we will share how culture-smart facilitation sustains consensus from kickoff to adoption. The session moves through Installation Planning Standards and Installation Development Plans, housing-programming charrettes, and air traffic control tower cases to show how roles are set across agencies, how to work well with translators, how to adapt visuals and meeting formats, and how to navigate power dynamics and history. Participants will leave with practical checklists, scripts, and co-creation tools ready for use with ministries, municipalities, and neighborhoods.

Presenters include Lyndsey Deaton (Architect and Senior Planner at the UC and Assistant Professor of Architecture and Director of the Health Equity + Environmental Design Lab at Clemson University), Zoe Anton (municipal and civil works planning lead at the UC; LSE-trained, LEED AP ND), and Barry Gordon, AICP (COO at the UC and Assistant Director at the University of Oregon), who together bring deep experience guiding complex, multi-agency planning in diverse cultural contexts.

Registration is simple and free. Join any part of the program and collect CM credits throughout the day, including one Sustainability & Resilience CM with our session! See you there!

We’re excited to welcome Zachary (“Zach”) Sumey to our team as a Junior Planner & GIS Technician. Zach’s superpower is transforming unruly, multi-source data into maps that actually help people make informed decisions about what to do next. He thinks like a planner and designs like a communicator: what belongs on the page, what doesn’t, and how to sequence layers so meaning comes through at a glance.

Zach’s day-to-day spans the full arc of our work: building clean geodatabases, shaping suitability and constraints analyses, and crafting illustrative maps that carry a project from concept to delivery. He’s fluent in modern GIS tools (ArcGIS Pro, QGIS and companion workflows) and meticulous about symbology, hierarchy, and legibility—because the best maps aren’t just accurate; they’re persuasive.

A favorite recent assignment for Zach was our planning work at Fort DeRussy on the beach in Oʻahu, Hawaiʻi—a distinctive site that serves service members and veterans. He supported on-site analysis, translated workshop findings into analytical mapping, and then produced phase-specific planning exhibits that tied the story together: existing conditions, opportunities, and a clear path forward. It’s a good snapshot of what he brings—grounded field insight, careful data handling, and calm, coherent visuals that make complex tradeoffs navigable.

Before joining us, Zach served in the military in geospatially driven roles where clarity and timing mattered. That background shows up in all the right ways: he’s collaborative, deadline-steady, and precise about what decision-makers need in the room. He’s also a thoughtful teammate—quick to ask sharp questions, quick to lend a hand, and quick to iterate when a map needs to do just a little more.

What drew him here? In his words: the chance to deepen his GIS practice alongside planners and architects, learn the craft of place-making from the inside, and contribute to projects with real community impact. The culture mattered, too—he was looking for a studio that’s supportive, curious, and high-standards without the ego. That fit has been mutual.

You’ll see Zach’s fingerprints on the kinds of products our clients count on:

• Terrain-aware analyses that make topography, hydrology, and access constraints understandable (and actionable).
• Planning and phasing graphics that balance near-term feasibility with long-term resilience.
• Workshop maps that help teams test options in real time—clear enough to spark conversation, robust enough to stand as record.

Ask him about cartographic craft and he’ll talk about choices: which layers matter, how to stage them, how type and line weight reinforce meaning, and when to simplify so the right story leads. Ask him a lighter question—If our firm had a mascot?—and he’ll pick a Golden Retriever: upbeat, collaborative, and always ready for the next challenge.

Please join us in welcoming Zachary Sumey. We’re glad he’s here—and we can’t wait for you to see how his maps make your next workshop, concept set, or master plan clearer, faster, and stronger.

The Urban Collaborative’s Barry Gordon, Zoe Anton, and Don Rickman led a packed, high-energy workshop—“Building Communities: Form-Based Code Foundations”—at the joint Planning Conference hosted by the Oregon Chapter of the American Planning Association (OAPA), Western Planner (WP), and APA’s Tribal & Indigenous Planning Division (TIPD). More than 90 planners, designers, and community leaders filled the room, ready to roll up their sleeves for an interactive, hands-on dive into the power of form-based codes.

Over the course of the session, participants moved from fundamentals to application. They began with the history, theory, and purpose of form-based codes—development regulations that prioritize physical form over land use—and discussed why these visual, image-driven tools are gaining traction across U.S. municipalities to advance sustainable, efficient, and context-sensitive growth. The learning came to life through real-world examples from Eugene and Lowell, Oregon; Fort Lewis, Washington; and Emporia, Kansas, illustrating how codes can translate community vision into predictable, people-first places.

From there, the room turned into a studio. In small groups, participants set measurable planning objectives, then used scale models to design a mixed-use community that balanced housing, jobs, and public space. Teams developed the essential building blocks of a form-based code; an illustrative plan to communicate intent, a regulating plan to organize land and building form, and street standards rooted in complete street criteria to ensure safe, multimodal movement.

The capstone challenge asked each group to pressure-test its work using LEED-ND sustainability criteria. This final step connected design decisions to performance, reinforcing how thoughtful coding can drive lower emissions, healthier streets, and more resilient neighborhoods. By session’s end, attendees left with a toolkit of strategies—and the confidence—to craft codes that make better places possible.

We proudly welcome Brett James to The Urban Collaborative as a Senior Planner and Landscape Architect. Brett brings over three decades of federal and municipal planning experience, including 23 years as a civilian with the Naval Facilities Engineering Systems Command (NAVFAC) and 24 years of service in the U.S. Navy. His extensive portfolio includes leading the $8 billion redevelopment of Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni, award-winning installation master plans for Misawa Air Base and MCAS Iwakuni, and strategic planning for aircraft bed-downs across the Pacific and U.S. Southwest.

Brett also served as Director of Planning and Development for the City of Jacksonville, Florida—the largest city by land area in the continental United States—where he oversaw planning for a rapidly growing population of one million. A licensed landscape architect and certified city planner, Brett holds degrees in Landscape Architecture and Regional and City Planning. He has long championed integrated, stakeholder-driven planning through his leadership in the American Planning Association’s Federal Planning Division, including a term as Chair during which the Division earned APA’s Overall Performance Award.

But what drew Brett to The Urban Collaborative wasn’t just shared expertise—it was a shared philosophy. Reflecting on his first collaboration with Principal Mark Gillem in 2004 at Misawa Air Base, Brett recalls the transformative impact of a participatory design process that defied the linear models taught in most design schools. “Mark’s team didn’t just present solutions—they co-created them,” Brett says. “They got out into the field, listened, engaged residents, and brought those voices into the design process. The result was a dormitory campus plan full of creativity and ownership. Compared to the conventional approach, the difference was night and day.”

That experience became a paradigm shift for Brett. “Mark’s approach made everyone a designer. When the dust settled, participants owned the solution and left as enthusiastic advocates. It was a stunningly obvious approach to developing complex plans—and one I’ve believed in ever since.”

Now, after watching The Urban Collaborative grow into what he calls “the most capable planning team serving the federal government,” Brett is excited to bring his experience full circle. “The world is changing,” he says. “It needs our brand of future planning. I believe there’s more to come—and I’m exuberant to be part of it. Let the journey continue.”

At Aberdeen Proving Grounds, we partnered with the U.S. Army and JPEO-CBRND to develop a visionary new future for Building 4218—a 1950s-era barracks with a complex history. Following a prior renovation and subsequent water damage, this facility required more than repair: it needed a strategic overhaul. Through a collaborative planning charrette, our team crafted a comprehensive roadmap for transforming the building into a high-performing, secure headquarters that fully supports the mission of JPEO-CBRND.

Our scope included architectural programming, space planning, stakeholder workshops, and a thorough condition assessment to meet federal standards and user-specific requirements. The proposed design introduces an open, flexible layout with secure zones, state-of-the-art building systems, and enhanced circulation. Site plans improve pedestrian safety, integrate bioswales for stormwater management, and reinforce the building’s connection to the broader installation campus.

With over 34,000 usable square feet, 274 workstations, and 13 conference rooms, the new layout supports collaboration and mission-readiness in a modernized environment​. This project exemplifies our ability to align facility design with evolving operational demands, bringing resilience and functionality to the forefront of federal facility planning.

The Urban Collaborative is proud to celebrate Paula Loomis, FAIA, who the Virginia General Assembly has formally recognized for receiving the 2024 American Institute of Architects (AIA) Award for Excellence in Public Architecture. This prestigious honor, awarded through AIA Virginia, highlights Paula’s lifelong dedication to designing and advocating for distinguished public architecture that enhances communities and strengthens resilience.

With an illustrious career in public architecture, Paula has shaped the built environment through her work on more than fifty facility standards for federal agencies and military branches, influencing the resilience and sustainability of tens of thousands of public facilities. Her leadership in advancing government sustainability and resilience strategies has left a lasting impact at the national level.

In addition to her architectural contributions, Paula’s service in the United States Air Force underscores her commitment to public service. Having served six years on active duty and 24 years as a reservist, she played key roles as the senior reservist to the Air Force Civil Engineer Center and the base architect for Langley Air Force Base, retiring at the rank of colonel with numerous distinctions.