Neighborhoods

It is generally agreed that concentrating low-income housing in dense, urban areas is largely ineffective. With the inception of the HOPE VI Program – and now the Choice Neighborhoods Initiative from the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and other Inclusionary Zoning Programs has come the idea of mixed-income housing communities as an attractive alternative to isolated low-income housing developments. Balanced, mixed-income developments provide housing for low-income and assisted households, while also offering workforce and market rate housing options, contributing to the diversity and stability of American communities.

To achieve successful mixed-income communities, Torti Gallas’ work proceeds by discerning the wants and needs of the community through an analysis of the proper forms of housing and the desired mix of incomes of both renters and homeowners, and determining the economic and social support structures needed. Using this approach, Torti Gallas has designed tens of thousands of mixed-income housing units in communities throughout the United States. Our goal in all of our mixed-income communities is to create consistently high quality housing that offers a “Community of Choice” for people of all incomes.

Torti Gallas + Partners has singular experience and recognized excellence in community-driven placemaking for student and faculty housing. In designing homes for college campuses, comprehensive plans for the homes, facilities, utilities, streets, and transportation are critical parts of our work. We first identify what already exists.... The word first highlighted in red shows up as funny characters on the site.

In addition to, and in some cases in conjunction with, our affordable housing communities, Torti Gallas has designed workforce-housing neighborhoods. Our workforce housing is generally intended for individuals and families earning below their area median income (AMI) and is targeted at “essential workers” in a community: teachers, medical professionals, firefighters, and police. We have designed award-winning workforce housing on the campuses of several major U.S. universities and as part of large, inner-city revitalizations.

From ultramodern to traditional designs, Torti Gallas creates unique market rate housing solutions that reflect and enhance the character and context of its surrounding community. Whether the commission requires carefully crafted infill or pioneer buildings in greenfield areas, our goal is to create maximum value for our clients, the future residents, and the communities they inhabit.

We seek to design buildings and places that people will be proud to call home, no matter where they come from or where they’re going. Our sustainable housing designs help our projects stand the test of time, allowing TG+P housing developments to serve as the backbones of new communities.

From Active Adult to Assisted Living, Skilled Nursing, and Continuing Care Retirement Communities, Torti Gallas understands the special needs and unique considerations of each of these levels of care and lifestyle. We have designed over 10,000 senior residential units and dozens of communities that offer these various levels of living. In all cases, we put people first in creating master plans, homes, and facilities that support their needs.

Today’s seniors are looking for homes, services, facilities, and amenities that promote healthy and active lifestyles and allow them to “age in place.” They are looking for active, mixed-use communities that create full-life experiences and healthy lifestyles while also providing them with the services and facilities that may be necessary as they age.

Continuing Care Retirement Communities offer the full range of sought-after senior housing options. From independent living for active seniors, to more health-based models for seniors needing more assistance with their daily needs, it is important to offer seniors the most independent options they can manage. In all cases, social connections and activities are key elements of providing desirable and high-quality environments that promote healthful living. These communities are replete with convenient and easily accessible activities, services, and amenities that meet the evolving physical, medical, and social needs of each resident.

Combining award-winning creativity with over 60 years of successful placemaking and maximizing value, Torti Gallas + Partners is unparalleled in the design and development of luxury residential and mixed-use environments. Our decades of design leadership in consistently bringing value to our clients and to the people who live, work, shop, and play in our communities distinguish us among planning and design firms. Our numerous national, regional, and local awards for residential design attest to our understanding of the relationship of the building form to its community, as well as our focused expertise in meeting the targeted needs of each distinct architectural commission.

Combining award-winning creativity with over 60 years of experience of successful placemaking and maximizing value, Torti Gallas and Partners has unparalleled capabilities in the design of mixed-use environments. We have designed and implemented through construction over 5 million square feet of mixed-use retail/commercial in both downtown urban infill/refill and freshly-born, authentic, lifestyle locales.

Working with our Developer Partners, we provide strategic advisory to achieve the right tenant mix and adjacencies, and to promote compatibility in order to enhance economic performance. We understand the ground plane of mixed-use environments from the perspective of the developer, the tenant and the consumer, and therefore carefully plan the merchandising mix and related open spaces to achieve a “high value“ balance between the retail, entertainment and restaurant tenants, while successfully integrating an appropriate mix of office uses, public uses, and residents.

In the last century, office buildings have become symbols of economic and financial progress and have literally created city skylines around the world. They are a metric by which employment patterns and changes in the economy are measured. To achieve this desired impact, Torti Gallas utilizes an integrated project approach that includes researching existing buildings, understanding the requirements of the building users, and relating these requirements to a functional and desirable design.

With a firm-wide commitment to designs that yield environmental, economic, and human sustainability, TG+P identifies beneficial and feasible development options that integrate sustainable horizontal and vertical construction strategies. Our designs create high-performance, energy-efficient buildings that offer owners and tenants increased user satisfaction and productivity and greater flexibility. We also employ cost-control techniques that provide us with current cost/benefit options with life-cycle cost input.

More than 60 years of design leadership in the residential market makes Torti Gallas unique among planning and design firms. Our numerous national, regional, and local awards for the design of residential and mixed-use communities attest to our understanding of the relationship of the building form to its community, as well as our focused expertise in meeting the targeted needs of each unique architectural commission.

TG+P’s expertise includes the design of carefully crafted infill housing solutions in a mixed-use context. Torti Gallas understands the challenges and opportunities inherent in the design and construction of infill housing. We create infill communities that feel as though they have always been there—making a seamless and complementary intervention of new with existing buildings. Our proven ability to leverage the new with the existing has consistently resulted in exponential increases in the value of the overall development for our clients.

TG+P’s designs for our hotel and resort clients create unique getaway experiences. These distinctive places offer luxuries and amenities, inside and out, to pamper guests and ensure memorable experiences. The master plans and lodgings in our designs are all about relaxation and convenience. Active and passive uses are incorporated in resort destinations to leverage the natural beauty of each unique location. Our goal is to make each guest feel as though the resort’s facilities have always been there and that the visitor is part of a larger, more expansive plan for life. In designing the placement of the lodgings, the built facilities, or the layout of the grounds and activity spaces, we seek to maximize the beauty and ease-of-use of each of our resort designs.

Every community needs a core, a place where neighbors can come together in the “community living room.” Such facilities offer countless benefits to residents and serve as an affordable place for people to exercise, enjoy nature, and spend time with their family and friends.

Community facilities designed by Torti Gallas often incorporate sustainable design and materials in order to obtain LEED Certifications. Ranging from a cozy 3,000 square feet to a generous 12,000 square feet, these buildings provide a host of amenities for neighborhood residents, including a neighborhood living room (great room), business centers, fitness centers, game rooms, and children’s rooms. In addition, most of the community facilities have an outdoor swimming pool, outdoor living areas, generously landscaped open areas, and ample outdoor recreational facilities, including basketball and volleyball courts. The buildings’ common areas provide families, neighbors, and community groups a place to meet and interact, creating a modern version of the Town Hall.

We are committed to repairing the mistakes of 50 years of automobile oriented development that has overseen the degradation of the public realm and sponsored the dual problems of urban divestment and suburban sprawl. We see a great deal of opportunity in the city through infill development that creates value and takes advantage of existing infrastructure; and likewise great opportunity in the suburbs, by making walkable places that nurture civic life and that bring amenities that provide convenience and occasion for placemaking.

We believe that our communities should be conceived to support and nurture healthy lives. Comfortable walkability and the integration of active recreation opportunities are the two greatest aspects of healthy neighborhoods. Neighborhood medical clinics can be gracefully incorporated within neighborhoods in storefront locations. The areas surrounding larger medical facilities are often deserts of surface parking and land targeted for expansion. We seek to create Mixed Use Medical Districts that can be lively, vibrant areas that support the healthcare mission of the institution, and attract the talent necessary for their success.

Our Campus and College Town work focusses primarily on student housing and faculty and graduate student housing neighborhoods. We seek to create market rate quality neighborhoods in what is often an affordable context. Comfort and character, amenity, affordability, relationships to the existing campus and larger context, and the ease of walking to and from the campus are the main issues for the projects.

Our resort community work seeks to offer the resident and visitor an authentic, memorable, and comfortable experience. The quality of the experience drives the focus on these key conceptual design issues; character and authenticity, comfort and amenity, Placemaking and programming, and incorporating the existing natural systems into the community.

We believe that a home and, by extension, a neighborhood, is not a commodity but a force that shapes the lives of the residents and their visitors.  The neighborhood where one lives is very probably the most important environment in the world for that person. The neighborhood therefore is an aspirational construct and shaping a healthy, beautiful, comfortable, and convenient place for quality family life and neighborly interaction, both formal and informal is the goal of our efforts.